Spending on credit and debt cards increased in July, as spending on travel appeared to rise amid the summer peak season.
People spent about €8.92 billion using cards in July, according to Central Bank data published on Friday. That was up about 8 per cent on June, while the number of transactions rose 6.6 per cent.
The Central Bank’s card data is closely watched as it can give a near-real time picture of consumer confidence. Blips in economic growth can often be seen in such data sets well before more traditional measures such as gross domestic product, which can often have a lag time of a number of months.
While most of the spending remained within Ireland, the value of so-called non-domestic payments increased 13 per cent to €1.72 billion, tracking the summer holiday season.
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“Irish households increased their spending with airlines and in airports over the year,” the Central Bank said. “In value terms, spending in both sectors increased significantly from July 2023 to July 2024, having an 11.92 per cent and 18.77 per cent year on year increase respectively,” it added.
“This growth correlates with the increasing passenger numbers in airports, which reached a monthly high of 4.2 million in July, a 5.18 per cent increase when compared to June and in annual terms, the increase is 2.97 per cent when compared to July 2023,” the central bank added.
Overall, contactless payments accounted for about €2.3 billion of transactions, while payments using NFC technology – usually a phone or smartwatch – topped €1.34 billion.
Still, cash clearly remains popular. Domestic cash withdrawals rose 6.6 per cent to €1.1 billion July compared with June, while the volume of cash withdrawals rose 4.4 per cent to 7.6 billion.
Longford had the largest average cash withdrawal per transaction at €161, followed by Roscommon at €159 and Mayo at €158. Kilkenny was the lowest at €123.
Dublin, Cork and Galway accounted for close to half the overall total of cash withdrawals during the month, in line with their place as the main population centres in the country.
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