Card spending up by £5 billion year on year

20th March 2017

The UK Card Payments Association has releases the latest card expenditure statistics for January 2017. Highlights include:

  • Payment card spending in January 2017 was £57.1 billion, up by £0.5 billion (0.8 per cent) on December
  • pending was up by £5 billion year on year
  • The number of purchases reached a new monthly record of 1.3 billion
  • Online spending amounted to 27 per cent of total card spending, with 176 million purchases worth £15.3 billion
  • ]Retail sector card spending grew by £134 million in January, to £25.7 billion. The largest increases came from automotive fuels and food and drink
  • Within the service sector, spending grow by £334 million to £31.4 billion, with the entertainment sub-sector a strong contributor to growth
  • The debit and credit card share of total retail sales was 77.4 per cent in January.

Richard Koch, Head of Policy at The UK Cards Association, said: “Payment card spending continued to increase in January, as did cards’ total share of retail sales. These figures once again show consumers’ preference to reach for cards instead of cash when they pay for goods and services.”

 

Total Spending

£ billions

Annual growth rates for spending

Number of purchases

Millions

 

Jan 2017

Jan 2016

Jan  2017

Jan 2016

Jan 2017

Jan 2016

All payment cards

57.1

52.1

4.8%

7.6%

1,322

1,170

  Of which online

15.3

11.8

10%

17%

176

142

Debit cards

40.8

37.0

5.4%

8.4%

1,026

902

Credit cards

16.3

15.0

3.1%

6.0%

297

268