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Record levels of card spending this Christmas

Despite reports of a slowdown in consumer expenditure, Streamline, The Royal Bank of Scotland's card processing business, reveals that spending on debit and credit cards is maintaining last year's record levels.

Spending on debit and credit cards through Streamline, the UK's largest card processor, showed that last weekend was the busiest of the year with £630 million being spent on Saturday and Sunday at up to £823,000 per minute. A total of over 10 million transactions were processed at a peak of 340 per second.

Withdrawals from NatWest and The Royal Bank of Scotland cash machines were also at high levels last weekend. Over 4.7 million withdrawals were made, with a total value of £302 million which compares with a figure of £281 million for the same weekend last year. The Royal Bank of Scotland Group has the largest cash machine network in the UK with over 5,500 machines.

Tony Surridge, Director of Retailer Card Services at The Royal Bank of Scotland, said:

"Despite talk of a slowdown in consumer expenditure, we have seen record spending levels on credit and debit cards over the last fortnight. This, coupled with the high levels of withdrawals from cash machines, suggests that consumers are maintaining spending levels slightly above Christmas 2001.”

“With average purchase values marginally higher than 2001, the mood appears to show that consumers and retailers will have a Christmas at least as good as the last one.”

"Over the course of the year we have seen continued strong growth in card usage and only last week we processed our two billionth card transaction in a year - the first time any card acquirer has ever achieved this in the UK. We shall now watch the December and January sales with renewed interest."