With the festive whirlwind of December almost a distant memory, UK households are dusting off their credit and debit cards on their return to the high street .

Whether consumers are all too familiar with the scare of the economic crisis and the over-arching recession seems irrelevant, as Barclaycard Global Payment Acceptance announce an increase of eighteen percent on debit and credit card purchases during March. This figure is of course are marked improvement on last year's 'Christmas recovery' with a significant number of people returning to the retail sector for both high street and online sales .

The financial boost for personal and household spending during the the month of March has been identified as a growing trend over the last three years. It has been reported that the improved figure is in fact nine point two percent higher than last year's data, and a further seven point one percent stronger than the year before.

It seems as though March sees the return of UK households to their financial budget as mortgages, credit and personal loans seem less of a strain on the majority of families. Whether the highly-publicised personal and national debts has impacted on the issue remains unseen. The figures do however follow a report from the Payments Council which identified a marked decrease in the number of customers using what has been referred to as 'traditional methods' of payment – such as cash, whilst opting for credit purchases and debit card transactions.