May spending rises in Wanganui

Wangnaui City PHOTO/FILE

Wanganui businesses might be seeing an improvement - albeit gradual - in retail spending in their stores.

Figures compiled by Paymark show trading was strong and consistent in May across the country and it has been reflected in Wanganui in terms of the number of transactions and their value.

Paymark processes more than 900 million transactions, worth more than $45billion each year, on behalf of more than 50 card issuers and acquirers every year.

More than 75,000 merchants and more than 110,000 Eftpos terminals are connected to its network.

Mark Spicer, head of customer relations for the company, said in Wanganui there were 940,000 electronic transactions, which was 5.2 per cent more than the 900,000 transactions in May last year.

They produced a spend of $40.3million in May, a 4.4 per cent lift on the $38.6million spent in May 2013.

He said nationwide the figures pointed to a strong and consistent month of trading, annual growth in the volume of transactions processed the fastest since 2008. Kiwis swiped or tapped their cards just under 90 million times in May - and the surge was especially notable during the first seven days when spending was up 9.1 per cent across the country, compared to the corresponding week of trading in 2013.

He said stronger trading throughout May could be explained by several factors, one of those being the fact there were five Saturdays this year, but only four last year.

"With Saturday being the day of the week that typically results in the highest volume of transactions processed through our network, this will have impacted the data ..."

Trends associated with credit card spending outstripping debit cards had continued last month.

"This is something we can expect to see on an ongoing basis, as more and more contactless cards come into the market and merchants enable their terminals to accept this payments method," Mr Spicer said.

Trading was strong in hospitality, with a 14 per cent rise nationally year on year. Food and liquor stores also recorded a lift (12.3 per cent).

Spending was modest among department stores, appliance retailers and clothing shops compared to 2013, and continued to decline within the book, stationery and video sector.