Kiwis Show Their Cards Over Labour Day Weekend

Media Release
27 October 2006

Kiwis Show Their Cards Over Labour Day Weekend

Increased use of EFTPOS and credit cards points to Christmas spending trend

If Labour Day weekend retail spending is anything to go by merchants can expect New Zealanders to use their plastic even more in the lead up to Christmas, according to Paymark EFTPOS (Paymark).

New Zealanders carried out more than 7.8 million electronic transactions over the Labour Day weekend, according to statistics from Paymark, which processes around 80% of all EFTPOS and credit card transactions in New Zealand. This is over 500,000 transactions more than the same holiday weekend in 2005.

Key Labour Day weekend electronic transaction statistics:

2006 2005 Change
• Transactions volume 7,852,729 7,276,950 +575,779

Simon Tong, Chief Executive Officer, Paymark, says that the Labour Day weekend statistics continue to illustrate a trend away from cash in New Zealand.

“The transaction growth of around 8% does not necessarily represent an increase in consumer spending, but rather highlights the continued move away from cash and cheques to electronic payments. In recent months we have also seen banks introducing low fee accounts into the market which generate even more use of cards.

“A mark of how much more reliant New Zealanders are on electronic transactions is that over the Labour Day weekend four years ago in 2002 we processed just over four million transactions, valued at around $200 million. There has been a trend over the years with the average value of EFTPOS transactions decreasing, as people use cards for more day-to-day spending.

“Debit and credit cards are the dominant forms of payment in a Kiwi’s wallet, and other forms of transactions such as online payments will continue to replace the traditional cash and cheques.”

Ends.

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