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* $3.6 billion spent with contactless cards in 2014
* Proportion of purchases made with cards increases (Adds data from Barclays)
By Matt Scuffham
LONDON, Feb 6 (Reuters) - Spending using contactless paymentcards more than trebled to 2.32 billion pounds ($3.6 billion) inBritain during 2014, the UK Cards Association said on Friday.
The trade body said debit and credit cards accounted for75.8 percent of retail sales in Britain, up from 51.6 percent adecade ago.
Executives in the financial services industry expect theproportion of purchases made with cash to continue to decline asalternative forms of payment become more convenient.
"Contactless has now firmly stepped into the mainstream,"said Richard Koch, head of policy at the UK Cards Association."With usage soaring every month last year, we've seen peopleflocking to contactless payments as they switch away from cash."
Britain's biggest banks, Barclays, HSBC,Lloyds Banking Group and Royal Bank of Scotland, all offer customers contactless payment cards.
Customers can use the cards for purchases up to 20 pounds inshops, bars and restaurants and also for travel on some servicessuch as the London Underground.
Barclaycard, which processes nearly half of all payment cardtransactions in Britain, said on Friday that contactlessspending with its cards rose 115 percent in value and 108percent in volume in 2014.
Barclaycard said the highest usage rate was in London, wherecontactless cards accounted for three out of every 10 eligibletransactions.
It said nearly two-thirds of customers using contactlesscards were men and the average age of customers using the cardswas 43.
($1 = 0.6527 pounds) (Editing by Simon Jessop and David Clarke)
