Core retail electronic card spending flat

After adjusting for seasonal effects, electronic card transactions in core retail (which excludes the motor vehicle-related industries) remained flat in August 2009, up just 0.1 percent compared with July 2009, Statistics New Zealand said today. This follows a 1.1 percent increase in July. In August 2009, the core retail industry groups were all flat or slightly down.

Transactions in the retail industries were also flat (up just 0.2 percent) with a small increase in automotive fuel retailing. There was a slight rise in total electronic card transactions (up 0.3 percent), mainly due to an increase in the non-retail group (which includes services such as travel and health, and wholesaling).

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

Annual credit card transactions as a proportion of the total transaction value continues to decline (with a corresponding increase in debit card use). Credit card use accounted for 44.8 percent of transactions in the year to August 2009, the 11th consecutive month to show a decrease.

The total number of transactions for the year to August 2009 was 1,064 million compared with 1,009 million for the year to August 2008. The average transaction value for the year to August 2009 was $53 compared with $55 for the year to August 2008.