Contrary to predictions, UK shoppers did not substantially increase their credit card usage during the festive period, choosing not to get into debt for the Christmas rush.
A report from the UK Cards Association, the trade body for the card payments industry in the UK, reveals that there was not a spike in credit card spending. Shoppers favoured debit card expenditure, with £34.4bn ($52.4bn) being spent as opposed to £14.1bn on credit cards.
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Richard Koch, head of policy at The UK Cards Association, said: "There is a popular myth that people splurge on their credit cards in order to pay for Christmas but our figures show that the reality is really quite different" (……) "Four out of every five people now pay off their credit card in full every month and therefore are not charged interest."
The volume of transactions paints a similar picture. There were 799m debit card transactions made in November, compared to 241m credit card payments made.
The pace of growth on both debit and credit card spending has continuously decelerated since April when it peaked at 7.5%.
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By GlobalData
