New Zealanders' love affair with their Eftpos cards continues, recession or no recession.
Electronic card spending continues to trend upwards, with new figures showing total card transactions growing a seasonally adjusted 0.7 per cent last month from March.
In just the retail industries, the value of transactions was up 0.3 per cent in April. For core retail, which excluded the vehicle-related industries, transactions were up 0.5 per cent.
The consumables industry, which includes food, liquor, and chemist retailing, was the main contributor to all the increases, Statistics New Zealand (SNZ) said publishing the data today.
The non-retail industry, including services, travel and health, and wholesaling, was the second-largest contributor to the increase in total transactions.
The rises were partly offset by falls in apparel and fuel.
Latest figures indicated that, following a period of decline in late 2008, the sales trend for total transactions had been positive so far in 2009, SNZ said.
The retail trend series also declined in late 2008, but latest figures indicated small increases since a low point in January 2009.
Having increased almost continuously since the series began, the trend for sales in core retail flattened between November and February, but latest figures suggested it had picked up again in the past two months.
The year ending April saw the biggest annual drop in credit card usage as a proportion of the total value of transactions since the series started. There was a corresponding rise in debit card usage, SNZ said.
In the latest year, credit cards accounted for 45.6 per cent of transactions, down from 46.6 per cent in the year ended April 2008.
- NZPA
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