$66 billion in interchange collected in 2025

U.S. financial institutions collected $66 billion in interchange last year, up from $64 billion in 2024, according to a new report from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Separately, the Diary of Consumer Payment Choice, published by Federal Reserve Bank System, shows that consumers use a wide range of payment instruments, from cash to mobile apps.

But their favorite way to pay is using credit and debit cards. According to that report, consumers made more payments in 2024 than any year since the Fed started publishing the diary – 48 each month, up from 46 in 2023.

Credit cards drove that growth, rising from 15 to 17 transactions a month. Debit cards were the second most common payment choice, used an average 14 times a month. Cash has held steady at 7 transactions a month since 2021 the Fed found.

While the number of cash payments has remained unchanged since 2021, cash has decreased as a share of total payments, from 20 percent to 14 percent in 2024.

Consumers love cards

Credit card usage increased from 28 percent of monthly consumer payments in 2021 to 35 percent in 2024. Debit card payments stayed relatively the same – 29 percent of total monthly payments in 2021 and 30 percent in 2024.

Most consumers told the Fed they prefer to use cards for in-person transactions. Better than three-quarters of those surveyed for the diary (77 percent) said they used cards for non-bill payments occurring at the point of sale.

The Fed also found that nearly two-thirds (66 percent) of monthly cash payments are made by consumers who actually prefer using cards. "This data reveals that cash often is used as a backup payment instrument by consumers who do not prefer cash," the Fed wrote. What's more, about three quarters of monthly cash payments (76 percent) were made to retailers who accepted cards.

The Fed surmised that this may because some retailers have minimum purchase amounts for accepting cards.

Managed by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta and administered by the University of Southern California, the Diary of Consumer Payment Choice collects shopping and other payment data over a three-day period each October from a nationally representative survey of consumers. It is published by Federal Reserve Financial Services, which is responsible for payment services offered Fis by Federal Reserve Banks.

Interchange is just one component of 'swipe' fees

The St. Louis Fed, in its new report, said both debit and credit card volumes have been increasing in recent years, according to the Large Bank Credit Card and Mortgage Data 2025 Q3. For credit card transactions, the average purchase volume per account continued to increase year over year within all credit score bands through the third quarter of 2025.

Similarly, a 2025 report by the Federal Reserve Board found both total debit card transaction volume and value grew at an average annual rate of 4.6 percent from 2021 to 2023.

In it's report, the St. Louis Fed said FIs collected nearly $66 billion in interchange or "swipe" fees in 2025. This number is dwarfed by reporting out of the Merchant Payments Coalition which in March reported that "swipe fees" charged merchants "to process transactions have reached a new high of $198.25 billion" in 2025 up from $187.2 billion in 2024. The MPC cites data published by the Nilson Report, and asserts "swipe fees have grown 219 percent since MPC began tracking them in 2009, when the total was $62.1 billion.

"Credit card swipe fees make just about everything Americans buy more expensive," said Doug Kantor, general counsel at the National Association of Convenience Stores and a member of the MPC executive committee.

As anyone who sells merchant services understands, the difference between the St. Louis Fed and MPC data is explained by the fact that the Fed Bank is reporting interchange revenues while the MPC data reports total processing fees.

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