Barclaycard Retail Spending Index reveals upturn in card payments

Barclaycard data shows that payments made on credit and debit cards, in-store and online were up 7.1% in February compared to the same month last year. This increase follows on from figures that showed that credit and debit card spending was up 3.6% in January 2010 compared to January 2009.

The Barclaycard Retail Card Spending Index is based on spending on all credit and debit cards, across 44 retail sectors at the 87,000 businesses in the UK that use Barclaycard Global Payment Acceptance, which has an overall market share of over 30%. In February, Barclaycard Global Payment Acceptance processed transactions for 10.4 million UK customers and 10.8 International customers.

Although on a month-by-month basis, spending decreased by 2.5% from January this year, Stuart Neal, Head of UK Payment Acceptance said:

“The numbers show that things are looking up for retailers this year. The small drop from last month is typical of what we see at this time of year and is caused by the residual effects of the January sales and households returning to a more regular spending pattern.”