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New Zealand data on credit card use and balances is collected by the RBNZ and reported monthly.  This gives us an important look at the growth of credit limits, how much of those limits are being used, how much people owe on their credit cards, and what proportion has not been paid off within the interest-free days and incurs interest.

The RBNZ data also allows us to filter out credit card activity by foreigners while they are here, and see how much New Zealanders use their cards overseas (although not all of these things are covered in our chart above).

The transaction data is now a sub-set of data for all electronic card transactions, which is reported slightly earlier by Statistics NZ; however Statistics NZ do not report balance data, only transaction data.

Special note: There was an important review in July 2008 of how credit limits are reported. According to the RBNZ ...

This break has occurred because the Bank [RBNZ] re-specified total credit limits for credit cards to apply only to cards able to be used for spending (unblocked cards). This aligns the limit figure with the generation of billings data. Excluding blocked card limits from total credit limits has reduced the aggregate credit limit total reported but represents no change in credit limit practices of survey respondents. This change is a level shift. The annual rate of growth of limits on the former and new specifications remains around 4-5% in the year to August 2008.

Get that? Anyway, that is why the credit limit chart used to have that big step-down in mid 2008. In September 2011 the RBNZ revised its series so that the 'new' basis is now consistent from the beginning of the series.