調查：刷卡消費成新潮流

Cash is no longer king as far as most Australians and South Koreans are concerned as more than eight in 10 pay less often in cash today than they did five years ago, according to a survey released on Monday.

In comparison, 69 percent of Americans surveyed use less cash than five years ago, while in Asia the figures were generally lower, with Singapore at 45 percent, said MasterCard Worldwide.

Shuan Ghaidan, MasterCard's Asia Pacific head of product sales and delivery, said one reason for the declining use of cash in Australia was the growing popularity of debit cards, while in South Korea contactless payment on mobile phones had picked up.

Credit cards tended to be used for higher value transactions, he said.

Besides young people, for whom debit cards are usually their first card, he said the debit card is also preferred by some older people "who don't want credit anymore, don't want to fall into debt anymore."

The global economy has been rocked in the past year by a credit crisis stemming from US mortgage loan defaults.

The survey noted that nearly 9 in 10 Australians and New Zealanders said they disliked carrying large amounts of cash, compared to 6 in 10 Singaporeans or 80 percent of Americans.

MasterCard said it conducted 7,000 interviews across 12 countries, including Malaysia, China, South Korea, Canada, Italy, France and Germany.

本週一公佈的一項調查顯示，對於多數澳大利亞人和韓國人而言，現金已不再是他們的主要支付手段，如今超過80%的人不像五年前那樣常用現金支付。

據萬事達卡國際組織介紹，美國69%的受訪者如今使用現金支付的頻率低於五年前；而亞洲的比例總體較低，新加坡的這一比例爲45%。

萬事達卡亞太區產品銷售與遞送部總監舒安•蓋頓稱，借記卡的日益盛行是澳大利亞現金使用率下降的一個原因，而在韓國，非接觸手機支付方式也已成新潮流。

他說，人們在進行大宗交易時往往使用信用卡。

借記卡通常是年輕人擁有的第一張卡，但據蓋頓介紹，除年輕人外，一些年齡較大的人對借記卡也青睞有加，因爲“他們不想再欠債，不想再背上債務。”

在過去一年中，由美國次級房貸問題引發的信貸危機嚴重影響了全球經濟。

該調查顯示，近90%的澳大利亞人和新西蘭人稱自己不喜歡隨身攜帶大量現金，而在新加坡和美國，這一比例分別是60%和80%。

萬事達卡國際組織共在全球12個國家開展了7000個訪問，其中包括馬來西亞、中國、韓國、加拿大、意大利，法國和德國。