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Published on December 28, 2007

The research company conducted a survey to study ATM and debit cardholders' behaviour and found that most prefer credit cards to debit cards.

Awareness was low that debit cards can also be used to buy goods and services aside from withdrawing cash.

KResearch said 18.1 per cent of the respondents said they did not know the difference between pure ATM cards and debit cards.

According to the survey, 53 per cent hold only ATM cards, 16.4 per cent only debit cards and 30.6 per cent hold both.

Spending via debit cards - introduced locally eight years ago - is still minimal: Bt32 billion last year, when there were 13.95 million such cards.

Of the total debit cardholders, 61.7 per cent said they had never used their card for purchases at stores.

KResearch found that 41.1 per cent of cardholders faced problems when they used their debit cards: 48.7 per cent said fewer shops accepted them; 32.9 per cent said most shops suggested customers use cash instead and set a minimum spending level for using debit cards; and 18.4 per cent said there were technical problems.

"From our survey from both debit and credit cardholders, we found that most respondents - 70.1 per cent - opt to use credit cards for spending and 29.9 per cent use debit cards,"

 The Nation