2020.02.1122:45:00UTC+00New Zealand January Overall Credit Card Spending Rises 0.3%

The total value of credit card spending in New Zealand added a seasonally adjusted 0.3 percent on month in January, Statistics New Zealand said on Wednesday.

That was in line with expectations following the 0.6 percent decline in December.

Retail credit card spending fell 0.1 percent on month, missing expectations for an increase of 0.5 percent following the 0.8 percent drop in the previous month.

"Retail card spending has slowed over the last couple of months on the back of a very strong November month," retail statistics manager Sue Chapman said. "The industries that fell this month compared with December had falls that were quite small, with values only falling by NZ$11 million or less."

Spending in the core retail industries (which excludes automotive industries) was down 0.2 percent.

The non-retail (excluding services) category was up NZ$37 million (2.1 percent), and the services category fell NZ$0.8 million (0.3 percent) in January 2020.

By industry, the movements were: fuel, up NZ$8.7 million (1.5 percent); durables, up NZ$4.1 million (0.3 percent); motor vehicles (excluding fuel), up NZ$1.1 million (0.6 percent); apparel, down NZ$1.0 million (0.3 percent); consumables, down NZ$6.9 million (0.3 percent); and hospitality, down NZ$11 million (1.0 percent).

In actual terms, cardholders made 158 million transactions across all industries in January 2020, with an average value of NZ$50 per transaction. The total amount spent using electronic cards was NZ$8.0 billion.