Electronic card transactions

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.

Key facts

All figures are seasonally adjusted unless otherwise specified.

Values are at the national level and are not adjusted for price changes.

December 2023 month

Changes in the value of electronic card transactions for the December 2023 month (compared with November 2023) were:

• spending in the retail industries decreased 2.0 percent ($132 million)
• spending in the core retail industries decreased 2.0 percent ($119 million).

By retail spending category, movements were:

• durables, down $33 million (2.0 percent)
• fuel, down $19 million (3.4 percent)
• apparel, down $10 million (2.9 percent)
• motor vehicles (excluding fuel), down $4.6 million (2.2 percent)
• consumables, down $1.6 million (0.1 percent).

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 $24 million (1.1 percent) from November 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 $6.3 million (1.8 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), decreased from November 2023, down $53 million (0.6 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 3.3 percent ($45 million) between December 2022 and December 2023.

In actual terms, cardholders made 182 million transactions across all industries in December 2023, with an average value of $58 per transaction. The total amount spent using electronic cards was $10.6 billion.

December 2023 quarter

Changes in the seasonally adjusted value of retail electronic card transactions for the December 2023 quarter (compared with the September 2023 quarter) were:

• spending in the retail industries decreased $143 million (0.8 percent)
• spending in the core retail industries decreased $181 million (1.1 percent).

By spending category, the movements were:

• durables, down $319 million (6.3 percent)
• fuel, down $68 million (3.9 percent)
• consumables, down $51 million (0.6 percent)
• apparel, down $32 million (3.1 percent)
• motor vehicles (excluding fuel), down $0.1 million (0.0 percent).

The non-retail (excluding services) category was up $45 million (0.7 percent) and the services category was down $21 million (2.0 percent).

The total value of electronic card spending, including the two non-retail categories (services and other non-retail) decreased by $32 million (0.1 percent) compared with the September 2023 quarter.

As with the monthly figures above, we are focusing on the actual hospitality values for the December 2023 publication.

Year on year, hospitality was up $77 million (2.0 percent) compared with the December 2022 quarter.

Seasonal adjustment: quality note

COVID-19 has introduced unusual patterns to the monthly and quarterly electronic card transaction series. While the series continues to show irregular spending patterns, we are releasing seasonally adjusted data for December 2023, 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-December 2023 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: January 2024 will be released on 14 February 2024.