The peer-to-peer lending platform found that almost half of people receive at least on unwanted gift every year. While 41 per cent of people have given an unwanted gift to a charity shop, 13 per cent simply throw them away.

According to Rate Setter this leaves £460m worth of gifts on the shelves of charity shops every year, while £360m worth are resold and £122m of dud presents ended up in the bin.

In light of this data half (49 per cent) of Brits said that they were more likely to gift cash than they were five years ago, while 75 per cent said that even cash is better than an unwanted gift.

Ian Cruickshank of RateSetter said: “It’s worrying but not wholly surprising to see that £900 million was spent on unwanted gifts last year. To put this into perspective, if this amount of money was placed in a one-year product from RateSetter at today’s rate of 3.3 per cent this would earn people £29.5 million in interest by next Christmas.

“This year we’re predicting a continued shift away from traditional presents and a real focus on cash or cash-alternatives by savvy shoppers who don’t want to see their money go to waste.”