A loyalty program and access to an interest-free period increases credit card use at the expense of alternative payment methods, new research from the Reserve Bank of Australia reveals.

The research finds that a loyalty program increases the probability of credit-card use by 23% and access to the interest-free period increases the probability by 16%. It also finds that a loyalty program reduces the probability of cash use by 14% and has little effect on debit card use, while access to the