Consumers are spending more on plastic, figures show.
Spending on debit and credit cards jumped in September, despite the economic crisis and its impact on consumer sentiment. According to figures from the UK payments association Apacs, both the volume and value of purchases increased during the month.
The data shows that 497 million purchases were made on debit cards during the month - a rise of 12.7 percent compared to August. Meanwhile, credit card purchases totalled 172,706, up 9.4 percent on the previous month.
According to the BBC, Sandra Quinn from Apacs said the increase in card spending did not indicate that consumers were splashing the cash. Instead, she suggested that September's figures may have included some holiday spending from the second half of August.
Overall, during the third quarter of the year, consumers spent £93.7 billion on plastic, making 1.9 billion purchases. These figures were 7.3 percent higher and 8.6 percent higher than the second quarter respectively. Between July and September, debit cards accounted for 73.8 percent of all card transactions.
Last month, Datamonitor predicted that credit card spending would fall this year as consumers looking to keep track of their spending use their debit cards instead.
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