Monitoring, Sep 05 (INP) - For centuries, London has sustained a street-level economy where performers and vendors make a living from the spare change of strangers -- but they are being forced to adapt as cash falls out of fashion.

Busker Charlotte Campbell, who sings for her supper almost every day in the shadow of the London Eye top tourist attraction, was one of the first performers to use a contactless card reader.

"Things are changing in London and people tend to use cards to pay for things", Campbell told AFP, before an afternoon gig.

"That makes busking a dying art if people aren’t carrying cash any more."

Between five and 10 percent of Campbell’s income now comes not from coins tossed into her guitar case, but from people tapping bank cards on her reader -- set up through her phone to debit £2 (2.22 euros, $2.60) at a time.

It’s a rising trend: a report from the British Treasury earlier this year revealed that cash accounted for 40 percent of all domestic payments by volume in 2016, down from 62 percent in 2006.

The same report predicted its share of payments would fall to 21 percent by 2026 -- bringing Britain to the brink of becoming a cashless society.

In January, the government spurred the process by outlawing surcharges for using debit or credit cards in shops, removing one of the only significant downsides to digital payments for consumers.

Cashing in

There are other signs in the British capital that businesses are cashing in by banning coins and notes.

A number of lunch spots in the City of London -- the epicentre of the country’s finance trade -- now warn customers with prominent signage that they are entirely cash-free. Others assume that card payment is the default at the check-out.

And some street vendors of The Big Issue magazine -- part of a charity scheme to lift people out of poverty and homelessness -- have also taken to carrying contactless readers to attract passersby who are not carrying cash.

At Christ Church in East Greenwich, in southeast London, helpers still pass around traditional tithing bags to collect donations from the faithful during Sunday service.

But Reverend Margaret Cave has also been recently deploying a contactless card reader to mop up one-off donations from her flock -- young and old alike.

"I’ve taken card payments from our 93-year-old member of congregation and some of our much younger people," she said.

"You know it’s safely and securely going through to your bank account, no one can take it -- so it’s much better than having cash from that point of view."

Inp/khan