KEY POINTS:
Consumers put less on the plastic last month, adding to the evidence of a slowdown in retail spending.
Electronic card transactions, which include the use of credit and debit cards, fell 0.4 per cent in July in the retail sector by value, compared with June and seasonally adjusted, Statistics New Zealand said.
And in the "core" retail sector, which excludes automotive fuels, the value of card transactions fell 0.6 per cent.
The number of transactions was up 7.3 and 8.4 per cent respectively compared with July last year, the weakest annual growth since October last year.
The Reserve Bank's credit card billings figures for July, also released yesterday, tell a similar story, down 0.2 per cent for the month, seasonally adjusted.
The Statistics NZ figures exclude payment by cash, cheques, hire purchase, direct debit and automatic payments. But they still capture the majority of retail spending.
Over the three months ended July, card spending increased 1.1 per cent on the previous three months, which in turn had been 2.3 per cent up on the three months before that.
"Some easing in growth is to be expected given this year's tightening of monetary policy and the subsequent decline in consumer confidence, Deutsche Bank chief economist Darren Gibbs said, though he noted the last Roy Morgan survey of consumer sentiment, also released yesterday, showed a rise in confidence to the highest reading since May.
Goldman Sachs JB Were economist Shamubeel Eaqub expects retail spending to slow through to the end of next year.
"We expect to see sufficient economic slowdown over the coming year to prompt the Reserve Bank to start easing rates from mid-2008."
