Credit card transactions point to bumper season

Cash cards were used flat out last week as Christmas purchases pushed New Zealand's electronic transaction figures to new highs.

Eftpos firm Paymark, whose network accounts for about 80 per cent of all electronic transactions in New Zealand, says its figures for the week leading up to Christmas pointed to a bumper season for retailers.

Consumers made more than 13.5 million transactions in the week December 20-26 on the Paymark network, amounting to $814.3 million. This was up 17 per cent on the same time last year.

Paymark spokesman Darryl Roots said the figures reflected the longer shopping week before Christmas Day, which fell on a Saturday this year.

Aucklanders spent most, racking up just over 5 million transactions totalling $318.8 million, up 19 per cent on last year.

Canterbury followed with 1.6 million transactions totalling $97.6 million, also up 19 per cent.

Wellington recorded the greatest increase in Eftpos transactions, with spending of $84.8 million up 23 per cent on last year.

The spending has continued since Christmas, with 3.8 million transactions totalling $192.8 million made on the network from Boxing Day through to December 28 - up 5 per cent on last year - and momentum was now building towards the new year sales.

Roots said the the bad weather had definitely made a difference to the figures. "It's driving people inside with their credit cards."

High spending in the main centres indicated many people had opted to stay at home this week rather than go on holiday.

At this time of year, consumer spending in the Bay of Plenty - which recorded 927,485 transactions, up 10 per cent - was usually higher than Waikato, which recorded 978,025 transactions, up 16 per cent on last year.

People had a huge appetite for using electronic payments, even for relatively small ticket items. "That's why the transaction volumes on our network are able to accurately reflect what's going on in the market."

New Zealand Retailers Association chief executive John Albertson said 2004 had been a satisfactory year for the retail industry, with sales up 7.4 per cent in real terms for the September year.