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Finance
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Plastic Card Spending at Record High
According to recent figures released by APACS, the UK payments association, debit and credit card spending over the festive season reached a record £31 billion with 669 million transactions. This equates to 250 transactions per second around the clock - another record – and meant plastic card sales accounted for 63% of total retail sales.
Spending on debit cards increased significantly year over year, accounting for £19.6 billion worth of sales, a 15.3% increase on 2005. In fact debit card spending accounts for 63% of total ‘plastic card’ sales. Figures jumped from 426 million transactions in December 2005 to 472 million in 2006.
Spending on credit cards actually decreased slightly, despite the overall increase. £11.4 billion worth of December sales were made with credit cards, slightly down on the £11.5 billion of 2005. There was a corresponding decrease in transactions (4%) down to 197 million from 205 million.
The record amount of spending on plastic cards reflects a general trend towards plastic slowly replacing cash and cheques as traditional forms of payment – particularly in the mad shopping rush before Christmas. The dominance of debit card spending suggests cardholders are possibly become less impulsive with their plastic. APACS Director of Communications, Sandra Quinn, commented: “Figures show that cardholders are becoming more responsible in the way that they borrow and are clearly focusing on repayments, with the majority of spending being done by debit rather than credit cards."
UK consumer spending December 2005 December 2006 % change
On plastic cards £28.5 billion £31 billion +8.8%
On credit cards £11.5 billion £11.4 billion -0.8%
On debit cards £17 billion £19.6 billion +15.3%
www.businessinberkshire.co.uk/finance
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