Card-on-File Is the Top Use of Debit Cards, SoFi Report Says

Using a debit card as a card-on-file payment accounted for 25% of debit transactions made in the second quarter, says the SoFi Tech Solutions Debit Spend Index. That’s up from 24% in the first quarter, and marks the payment method’s rise past card-not-present debit transactions as the most popular.

Released Tuesday, the SoFi report also found that debit cards in card-on-file transactions accounted for 30.5% of all debit spend tracked by SoFi. The index is based on anonymized, aggregated debit transaction data processed through the SoFi platform across more than 300 merchant category codes.

Card-not-present use of debit garnered 24.5% of transactions and 19.2% of the dollar value in the quarter. Rounding out the top three uses was e-commerce at 12.9% of transactions and 16.5% of dollar value.

Overall, 62.4% of all debit transactions in the SoFi dataset were digital, down slightly from 63.6% in the first quarter. SoFi attributes the decrease almost entirely to a 2.6-point drop in card-not-present transactions that was accompanied by a 2.6-point increase in contactless transactions.

Subscription payments accounted for 16.1% of second quarter debit transactions, down slightly from 17.2% in the first quarter, but saw their average spend increase. That spend was up 8.5% quarter-over-quarter.

One factor in the growth in the average spend may have been a reaction by merchants to higher costs from tariffs. “Subscription merchants faced mounting cost pressure in Q2 as tariffs drove up the price of imported consumer goods. In response, many retailers emphasized subscriber value through promotions, exclusive deals, perks, and optional add-ons—approaches widely used to support retention without relying solely on a higher base price,” SoFi says in the report.

As for where consumers spent with their debit cards, the essentials stood out. The average spend per transaction at gas stations increased 3.2% in the quarter from the first quarter, fast food spending was up 1.9%, and spending at drug stores and pharmacies was up 1%.

Declines in the average spend per transaction were seen in restaurants, down 0.1%, convenience stores, down 0.7%, and grocery stores, down 3.1%. But the largest decline was in utility spending, which had an 8.3% decrease. SoFi says milder spring weather typically reduces second quarter heating costs, which can lower the overall utility spend.