Use of debit cards has grown 24 percent a year over last few years, says federal reserve report

• Consumers' use of debit cards is skyrocketing, escalating a long fight between lenders and retailers on how they want the cards used for transactions.
• By comparison, credit card use was up less than 7 percent from 2000 to 2003, a Federal Reserve report shows.
• "We are definitely seeing an increase," said Paula Saunders, vice president of marketing for Sun Federal Credit Union in Oregon.
• The dollar amount of retail transactions by debit cards last year was up 16 percent to more than $4.5 million from the previous year, she said.
• Financial institutions urge customers to hit "credit" when making a purchase with the debit card because that saves the institution money.
• When someone uses a credit card, the card companies charge the store 2 percent fee, and the financial institution gets some of that money.
• Frequent user Mark Olnhausen doesn't want people seeing him punch in his PIN and instead opts for the "credit" button on his numerous transactions at grocery stores, restaurants, and dry cleaning stores.
• "I use it for as many purchases as I possibly can because it keeps cash out of my pocket and I don't like walking around with my checkbook," said Mr. Olnhausen, an account representative in the Toledo office of SBC Inc.
• But Wal-Mart last year briefly stopped accepting MasterCard-branded debit cards and negotiated a deal with Visa to pay a smaller fee on each transaction.
• In 2003, the latest year for which figures are available, credit card transactions amounted to $1.7 trillion, compared with $600 billion for debit cards (which includes ATM withdrawals).
• MasterCard International Inc. reports that U.S. cardholders last year generated nearly $42 billion in transactions on debit cards, up 33 percent.
• Through the first three months of last year, Visa USA Inc. reported $346 billion in sales volume on its debit cards.