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Credit Card and Debit Card Use Statistics for February 2010

Posted by creditcardfinder on May 29th, 2010

Consumer spending behavior indicates how the economy is improving or struggling. Recent comparisons between February and January report an increase across all credit card transactions and spending. This could indicate that the Australian economy is growing in strength.

Evaluating consumer spending behavior helps us gauge the strength of our economy. The Reserve Bank of Australia conducts market testing and surveys to see where and how we are spending our money. Their recent figures show an uptick in spending in February of this year which points to consumer confidence that the worst of the world wide recession is probably over. These figures are a measure of the value of spending on credit cards including cash advances, the increase of this value was up 6.05% for a total of $18.22 billion in February over the January values.

The report also noted several other increase that indicate consumer faith. The balances outstanding on credit cards and charge cards was $47.12 billion. That is a 2.1% increase over the January spending of $46.15 billion. It is also a 5.18% increase compared to February of 2009. The money spent on these cards also is being paid back at a slightly slower rate. Repayment numbers were down a little bit in February to $17.71 billion from $18.59 billion in January, a 4.7% decrease. However, that number is 5.5% higher then repayments at the same time in 2009

Australians are also carrying larger balances on their credit card then they were last year. The February figure shows an average balance of $3,250 which is up from 1.9% to $3,189 in January. Over the past year the balance numbers have risen 3.29%.

When they looked at the purchase charges that were made on Australian credit cards and debit cards it also showed a big increase. In February we purchased $17.32 billion in goods and services as compared to only $16.32 billion in January, an increase of 6.1%. Over the past twelve months purchase spending has increased 7.1%. Cash advances have increased too up to $896 million in February. In the month previous that number was only $855 million which is an increase of 4.8%. However, cash advances seem to be down from the February 2009 spending by 6.95%.

The debit card or EFTPOS spending receded its value in both cash withdrawals and purchases. In February it was down to 160.92 million transactions with a value of $10.65 billion from 173.18 million transactions with a value of $11.40 billion in the previous month. Although this might indicate a decrease in consumer confidence it is still up significantly from the spending twelve months previous by nearly 10%. The evidence points to the beginning of a rebound in our economy, which is always good news.