Vehicle spending increases

Spending on motor vehicles with credit and debit cards hit a seasonally adjusted $208 million last month, which was up $4.5m, or 2.2 per cent, from January’s total.

February’s figure means the industry has started the year with back-to-back monthly increases after seeing numbers drop in the last two months of 2022, according to the data from Stats NZ.

In actual terms, the value of electronic card transactions for vehicles last month was $197m. This was an increase of $10m, or 5.3 per cent, from February 2022, and was also $2m, or one per cent, higher than January’s $195m.

The fuel sector was also on the up with the seasonally adjusted $574m spent in February 2.3 per cent more than the previous month. The actual value of $542m was 1.8 per cent higher than the same month a year ago.

Overall, retail card spending remained unchanged at $6.6 billion in February compared with January 2023, when adjusted for seasonal effects.

In actual terms, February’s tally increased by $636m, or 11.7 per cent, year on year.