Australians Spending Less On Credit Cards

Post by NeilMc on March 24, 2009 · Under Australian Economy, credit cards · Comment

Figures released by the Reserve Bank of Australia on Thursday shows that Australian consumers seem to be reducing the amount of debt they carry on credit cards as they hunker down and try and weather the onslaught of an impending recession.

Data from the Australian central bank shows that about Australians spent $5 billion less in January on their credit cards than they did in December.During January more than $16 billion was spent on credit and charge cards compared with the $21 billion spent in December which represents a decline of 21 per cent. During the same month in the previous year the total value of transactions fell by $500 million, and the number of purchases using credit cards fell by more than 22 per cent.

It should be noted that same month comparisons for the month of January are rather more useful than comparing December and January. December is the most active shopping months due to the holiday season, whilst January traditionally is one of the slowest months as people moderate their behaviour after having splurged in the previous month

The total amount of credit balances outstanding fell 1.5 per cent whilst balances accruing interest fell marginally by $100 million and stands at $32.9 billion.

Some analysts reckon that the data may be skewed by payments made to families under Federal Governments fiscal stimulus package, and that 90 per cent of the payments made were either put into savings or used to pay down credit card debt.

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