December electronic card spending flat

In December 2007, there were 95 million electronic card transactions totalling $4.6 billion, Statistics New Zealand said today. This seasonally adjusted figure for total card spending was unchanged from November 2007.

For the retail industries, the seasonally adjusted value of card transactions was also unchanged in December 2007 compared with November 2007. The seasonally adjusted core retail Electronic Card Transaction series increased 0.4 percent over the same period.

Seasonally adjusted sales for the motor-vehicle related industry had strong growth in each of the three months from September 2007 to November 2007 and, to a lesser extent, in December 2007. Increases in fuel prices appear to be the main reason for this growth.

The Electronic Card Transaction series for October and November 2007 have been released with the December 2007 data. The delayed release of this data was due to technical issues that affected the source data. The data has been revised back to November 2002.

The Electronic Card Transaction series measures the number and value of debit, credit and charge card transactions with New Zealand-based merchants. It is a census of all card transactions processed within New Zealand. Transactions by overseas card-holders in New Zealand are included; transactions by New Zealand card-holders overseas are excluded.

The data is released as an experimental series and Statistics NZ acknowledges the cooperation of the private sector in providing the data for publication.