Paymark study highlights positive end of 2017 for NZ retailers

New Zealand payment specialist Paymark has released figures for spending through its platform over the final quarter of 2017.

In December, NZ$5.94bn was transacted through the platform, marked by strong growth early in the month, including 8.1% annual underlying growth through Paymark in the first seven days, continuing on from the spending surge of late November.

More moderate growth rates were recorded during the rest of the month, including 6.4% annual growth on Boxing Day. Peak spending for the month was again on the Friday before Christmas Day, up 2.7% on the 2016 peak.

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One noticeable observation was a cooling off in spending growth in major centres such as Auckland, Wellington and Canterbury during December.

The highest spending growth was in Marlborough (18.6%), which includes Kaikoura in the Paymark statistics, and amongst other smaller regions such as West Coast (10.5%), Wairarapa (10.3%) and Gisborne (10.2%).

Total expenditure over 2017 through Paymark hit $60bn, which represents a 5.4% increase on 2016. Contactless payments rose by 11.5%, while the total number of transactions came in at 1.266bn.

The average transaction sizes were $47.39 in total, $64.59 for credit and contactless cards and $37.89 for debit cards.