Spending with credit and debit cards was flat on a seasonally adjusted basis in January and was up only 1.2% from a year ago, extending a sharp slowdown in growth since mid 2008.
Seasonally adjusted card spending was unchanged at NZ$4.6419 billion in January and followed two months of seasonally adjusted falls in card spending.
These figures from Statistics NZ are followed closely because they are the first official indication of retail sales.
Our measure of average spending per transaction continued to fall, with the average spent per transaction in January dropping to NZ$53.09 from NZ$54.95 per transaction in January a year ago.
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