Credit card holders 'give a record amount to charity'
Credit card users gave more to charity than ever before last year, according to new statistics.
Credit card holders 'give a record amount to charity'”
A total of £539.2 million was spent on charge and credit cards for charitable causes in 2008, an increase of 11% from the previous year, the statistics from UK Cards Association showed.
Further still, donations on credit cards tend to be higher than those on debit cards.
Donations to charities on debit and credit cards in total reached £1.19 billion in 2008, up from £1.01 billion in 2007 – marking an 18% increase.
Spending on affinity cards, where money is given to charities by credit card providers for every transaction made on the cards, reached £6.7 billion last year. With an average of 0.25% of each transaction being donated to charity, approximately £16.7 million will have been raised for good causes on these credit cards.
Sandra Quinn, director of communications, said: "Over the last few years we have seen more charities offer donors additional ways to pay, particularly with cards, and particularly online - all of which makes donating extremely easy, and unquestionably plays a part in the increase in charity spending on plastic cards."
The Co-operative Bank is currently offering a credit card called Think. For every £100 spend on the credit card, the bank donates 1.25p on deserving causes, at no extra cost to the credit card holder.
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