NORTH Ayrshire will be one of the last Scottish areas to go cashless, a study has found.

Research by online Online trading platform CMC Markets produced the findings using House of Commons data relating to the number of ATM closures across the UK.

They then compared this with population figures to find the number of ATMs per 10,000 people across different parliamentary constituencies in Scotland and the rest of the UK.

The data found that Aberdeen South has seen the biggest switch to a cashless approach in Scotland, with a 36 per cent reduction in ATMs in the region between 2018 and 2022.

Though much further down the list of 59 Scottish regions was North Ayrshire - in 51st position.

This is as, since July of 2018, their has only been a loss of 11 ATMs in the area.

This gives only an 11.3 per cent reduction across the four years covered by the findings - well below the national average of 18.3 per cent.

Elsewhere, Ayrshire Central (20 per cent) and Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (18.5 per cent) have seen a shift above the national average though Kilmarnock and Loudon (15 per cent) remains below the Scottish trend.

But what does this really mean?

Well since the Covid pandemic began, and health and safety fears arose regarding the handling of cash, many businesses and institutions have looked to speed up our switch to becoming a more cashless society.

Physical cash has become far harder to access over the past five years - with multiple bank closures and a reduction in the number of cash machines that can be found across the region.

Though this data shows that while North Ayrshire is becoming more 'cashless' - it will be far from the first in Scotland to see a complete change in the way we handle our money.