UK Credit Card Spending Drops During Festive Season
According to APACS, the UK payments association, credit card spending dropped during December 20006 as consumers opted to use their debits cards to fund Christmas shopping.
 Figures released by APACS show that spending on plastic during the festive season reached and unprecedented £31billion. Total card transactions for the period reached 669 million resulting in spending on plastic accounting for 63% of total retail sales.
Debit cards saw a significant rise in their use accounting for 63% of all plastic spending. A total of £19.6 billion was spent using debit cards by UK consumers during last December, an increase of 15.3% on December 2005's figures.
However, credit card spending saw a slight decrease, despite in the increased use of plastic during the festive season. Credit card spending for December 2006 totalled £11,4 billion compared with £11.5 billion for the same month of 2005. This equates to a decrease of 4% in the volume of credit card transactions, down 205 million on December 2005 to 197 million transactions.
"We spent record amounts this Christmas and record amounts on our card. The trend that we have seen over the recent years of cards replacing cash and cheques on the high street continued this Christmas. Spending on debit cards in particular has dramatically increased and now stands at almost double the level of spending on credit cards," said Sandra Quinn, director of communications at APACS.
She added: "Our figures show that cardholders are becoming more responsible in the way that they borrow and are clearly focusing on repayments, with the majority of spending being done by debit rather than credit cards."
The signs are that many UK consumers are heeding expert warnings regarding irresponsible credit card usage as the UK witnesses record levels of personal debt.
Tom Smith
3rd February 2007
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