LONDON (Reuters) — Plastic card spending over Christmas hit a record high in Britain last year, with 250 transactions taking place every second.Spending on credit and debit cards reached a record $31 billion over the festive period, according to figures from APACS, the UK payments association.

However, they also revealed that consumers were less inclined to rack up debt, with the bulk going on debit rather than credit cards.

There were 669 million plastic card transactions in December — six percent more than the same month the previous year and equal to a record 250 transactions per second — day and night.

Debit card spending continued to dominate, accounting for $19.6 billion worth of transactions, up from $17 billion in 2005.

The number of debit card transactions also increased — to 472 million from 426 million.

But despite the overall increase in plastic card spending, the value of credit card transactions fell to $11.4 billion from $11.5 billion. By volume, they were down 4 percent to 197 million transactions.

Sandra Quinn, director of communications at APACS, said the figures showed that the trend of cards replacing cash and cheques on the high street was continuing.

She added: “Our figures show that cardholders are becoming more responsible in the way that they borrow and are clearly focusing on repayments, with the majority of spending being done by debit rather than credit cards.”