The use of non-cash payments is on the rise in the United States, with electronic payment methods such as debit card and direct debit comfortably outstripping cheques, a study published Wednesday by the Federal Reserve showed.

The study, which used data up to the end of last year, found that the annual growth rate of the number of non-cash payments increased 4.6% from 2006, the year covered in the last study. An estimated 108.9 billion non-cash payments were processed last year, compared to 95.2