Electronic card spending increases, trend remains flat

After adjusting for seasonal effects, the total Electronic Card Transaction (ECT) series increased 0.4 percent in July 2008 compared with June 2008, Statistics New Zealand said today.

The durables, fuelretailing and consumables industries were the main contributors to this increase, which was partly offset bydecreases in the non-retail and hospitality industries.

The trend for the total ECT series has flattened since March 2008.

Prior to this thetrend generally increased between 0.5 and 1.0 percent per month.

After adjusting for seasonal effects, the retail ECT series was 0.8 percent higher in July 2008 than in June2008.

The core retail ECT series (which excludes the motor vehicle-related industries) increased 1.2percent in July following a 1.5 percent decrease in June. Both series have been variable since March 2008,in particular the core series, with alternating monthly decreases and increases.

The trend in the core ECT series has been flat since September 2007. By contrast, the trend series for retailECT has generally been stronger over the same period, mainly because of higher spending on fuel dueto increasing fuel prices.

There were 84 million electronic transactions in July 2008 with a value of $4.6 billion