Cards - Customers prove festive with plastic

Just published figures from APACS, the UK payments association, show that spending on plastic (credit/debit cards) over the Christmas period reached a record £31 billion.

There were 669 million plastic card transactions in December 2006, 6% more than during December 2005, equating to a record 250 transactions per second - day and night - through the month.

Spending on debit cards again rose significantly and accounted for the majority (63%) of spending on plastic cards. Indeed, UK consumers spent a total of £19.6 billion on debit cards - an increase of 15.3% (from £17 billion) on December 2005. The volume of debit card transactions also rose - from 426 million transactions in December 2005 to 472 million in December 2006.

Despite the increase in overall spending on plastic, credit card spending decreased slightly - coming in at £11.4 billion, compared to £11.5 billion for the same period in 2005. And there was a decrease of 4% in the volume of credit card transactions, down from 205 million in December 2005 to 197 million in 2006.

02 February 2007 © Moneyextra.com

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