The electronic card transactions (ECT) series covers debit, credit, and charge card transactions with New Zealand-based merchants. It can be used to indicate changes in consumer spending and economic activity.
14 February 2024: If you experience difficulties accessing Infoshare data for electronic card transactions, you can access the data in ‘Electronic card transactions: January 2024 – CSV’ under Download data below.
Key facts
All figures are seasonally adjusted unless otherwise specified.
Values are at the national level and are not adjusted for price changes.
January 2024 month
Changes in the value of electronic card transactions for the January 2024 month (compared with December 2023) were:
- spending in the retail industries increased 1.7 percent ($114 million)
- spending in the core retail industries increased 1.9 percent ($109 million).
| Month | Actual | Seasonally adjusted |
| Jan-21 | 6005676000 | 6003073000 |
| Feb-21 | 5391444000 | 5852344000 |
| Mar-21 | 5937346000 | 5871158000 |
| Apr-21 | 5989711000 | 6140889000 |
| May-21 | 6129789000 | 6286881000 |
| Jun-21 | 5930914000 | 6326694000 |
| Jul-21 | 6252189000 | 6385010000 |
| Aug-21 | 4821625000 | 5114611000 |
| Sep-21 | 4878099000 | 5124401000 |
| Oct-21 | 5774430000 | 5664976000 |
| Nov-21 | 6436912000 | 6177670000 |
| Dec-21 | 7770984000 | 6266411000 |
| Jan-22 | 6346436000 | 6382530000 |
| Feb-22 | 5449256000 | 5924594000 |
| Mar-22 | 5910254000 | 5814972000 |
| Apr-22 | 6113927000 | 6234641000 |
| May-22 | 6171502000 | 6404841000 |
| Jun-22 | 6042842000 | 6389131000 |
| Jul-22 | 6221006000 | 6412830000 |
| Aug-22 | 6116981000 | 6445140000 |
| Sep-22 | 6270883000 | 6553770000 |
| Oct-22 | 6734272000 | 6642564000 |
| Nov-22 | 6895341000 | 6604897000 |
| Dec-22 | 8146272000 | 6533178000 |
| Jan-23 | 6515834000 | 6627316000 |
| Feb-23 | 6085125000 | 6621631000 |
| Mar-23 | 6824429000 | 6658788000 |
| Apr-23 | 6502381000 | 6696218000 |
| May-23 | 6389119000 | 6594172000 |
| Jun-23 | 6341161000 | 6670713000 |
| Jul-23 | 6395060000 | 6627696000 |
| Aug-23 | 6372791000 | 6683166000 |
| Sep-23 | 6370078000 | 6625459000 |
| Oct-23 | 6596333000 | 6581046000 |
| Nov-23 | 7037830000 | 6686808000 |
| Dec-23 | 8100650000 | 6571938000 |
| Jan-24 | 6617940000 | 6685906000 |
By retail spending category, movements were:
- durables, up $28 million (1.8 percent)
- apparel, up $10 million (3.1 percent)
- consumables, up $9.3 million (0.4 percent)
- fuel, up $9.1 million (1.6 percent)
- motor vehicles (excluding fuel), up $1.8 million (0.9 percent).
| Industry (ANZSIC06) | Percentage change |
| Consumables | 0.4 |
| Durables | 1.8 |
| Apparel | 3.1 |
| Motor vehicles excl. fuel | 0.9 |
| Fuel | 1.6 |
| Non-retail excl. services | 2.7 |
| Services | -0.4 |
Note, the seasonally adjusted series are adjusted independently of each other, therefore, the sum of the component categories may differ to the total.
The non-retail (excluding services) category increased by $60 million (2.7 percent) from December 2023. This category includes medical and other health care, travel and tour arrangement, postal and courier delivery, and other non-retail industries.
The services category was down $1.5 million (0.4 percent). This category includes repair and maintenance, and personal care, funeral, and other personal services.
The total value of electronic card spending, including the two non-retail categories (services and other non-retail), increased from December 2023, up $187 million (2.0 percent).
Due to the effect of COVID-19 on tourism, we are unable to release seasonally adjusted figures for the hospitality category. As such, we are focusing on the actual hospitality values for this release. We will continue to monitor this approach as more data becomes available.
Spending in the hospitality category increased 1.9 percent ($24 million) between January 2023 and January 2024.
In actual terms, cardholders made 165 million transactions across all industries in January 2024, with an average value of $56 per transaction. The total amount spent using electronic cards was $9.2 billion.
Seasonal adjustments: quality note
COVID-19 has introduced unusual patterns to the monthly and quarterly electronic card transaction series. While the series continue to show irregular spending patterns, we are releasing seasonally adjusted data for January 2024, with the following caveats:
- We are confident in the seasonal adjustment of the core retail total, total retail, and total card-spending series.
- We are also confident in the seasonally adjusted figures for the consumables and durables industries for the December 2020-January 2024 months.
- The March 2020-November 2020 seasonally adjusted monthly data is of lower quality due to the impacts of COVID-19 on the usual seasonal spending patterns. Please use caution when making inferences from this data.
- The hospitality category is yet to see a clear seasonal pattern return to it, and so we have decided not to publish either the monthly or quarterly series until we have confidence in the quality of these series. We will continue to monitor this on an ongoing basis.
- All seasonally adjusted series will continue to be revised each month and will continue to be calculated each month. Due to the effects of COVID-19 on spending, they may change more than they did prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Impact of COVID-19 on seasonally adjusted and trend series has more information.
Trend series unavailable due to COVID-19
It is not possible to estimate current trend levels to Stats NZ’s usual quality standard until we know the full effect of COVID-19 on the time series. Once the series stabilises, we will estimate the COVID-19 effect on trend. The timeframe for this will vary for different series, depending on how they have been affected by COVID-19.
More data
Use Infoshare to access the electronic card transactions time series:
Subject category: Economic indicators
Group: Electronic card transactions (ANZSIC06) – ECT
Definitions and metadata
Electronic card transactions data collection methodology – DataInfo+ gives general methodology used to produce electronic card transaction statistics.
Electronic card transactions concepts – DataInfo+ gives definitions of terms used in this release.
Technical enquiries
Yvonne Fakahau
04 931 4600
[email protected]
ISSN 1178-0258
Next release
Electronic card transactions: February 2024 will be released on 12 March 2024.
