Total electronic card spending up in July

After adjusting for seasonal effects, the total Electronic Card Transaction (ECT) series increased 1.2percent in July 2009 compared with June 2009, Statistics New Zealand said today.

This follows a 0.4percent decrease in June.

The non-retail industries (which include services such as travel and health, and wholesaling) andconsumables industries (which include food, liquor, and chemist retailing) were the main contributors to theJuly increase.

The durables industries (which include furniture, hardware and appliance retailing) and theautomotive fuel retailing industry had small falls in July.

The seasonally adjusted values of transactions in the retail and core retail series were up 0.8 percent and1.1 percent, respectively, in July. These increases were dominated by the consumables industries andfollowed similar-sized decreases in June.

Trends for the total, retail, and core retail ECT series have all been increasing since January 2009.Latest figures indicate that the growth rate for the retail series has flattened, while for the core retail seriesthe growth rate has slowed.

However, the trend estimates may be revised and should be used with cautionuntil more data are available.

Annual credit card transactions as a proportion of the total value of transactions continues to decline (with acorresponding increase in debit card use).

Credit card use accounted for 45.0 percent of transactions in theyear to July 2009, which was the 10th consecutive month to show a decrease in the annualised total.

Geoff Bascand
Government Statistician
11 August 2009
END
See also Hot Off The Press information release Electronic Card Transactions: July 2009