WASHINGTON—Americans increasingly relied on credit cards to make payments in 2016, and made more of those payments remotely, according to new data the Federal Reserve released.
The number of credit card payments grew 10.2% last year, to 37.3 billion, compared with an annual growth rate of 8.1% over the previous three years, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The Fed attributed the increase in part to "continued strong growth" in the number of remote payments, such as online shopping and bill paying, which represented 22.2% of all general-purpose credit- and debit-card payments, the Wall Street Journal stated.
Remote payments increased 1.5% from 2015, the Fed said. By value, remote payments represented 44% of all general-purpose card payments, the Journal stated in its analysis.