Payments data, and an understanding of all the value in timely numbers on payments has long been central to Banking Day’s appreciation of the industry and of the economy.
Highlights of the numbers crunched by Michael Ebstein from MWE are rather startling this month.
Over June 2023, the value of acquired payment cards reduced by A$2.4 billion from May 2023 to $71.6 billion in June.
The implication of this indicator is that merchant acquiring volumes must now be in free fall.
Monetary policy tightening is taking its time to pack a punch in Australia, too slowly for most people’s liking.
It will be the payments numbers that foreshadow virtually everything else.
Thanks to Ebstein and MWE for his ever-reliable, always on time monthly report on the Australian payments domain.
Below are more of his highlights.
The changing structure of household indebtedness is illustrated by the following growth between June 2003 and June 2023:
• home lending increased by 454 per cent;
• non-housing personal loans increased by 57 per cent;
• credit card balances increased by 68 per cent; but
• credit card balances accruing interest increased by just 9 per cent.
In the latest figures:
· the movement in share of value of spend between the three and four party card schemes appears to be stabilizing, with the four party card schemes maintaining a share of 79.7 per cent of acquired value over the last twelve months;
· the rate of growth in spend on total payment cards eased slightly to 15.4 per cent;
· the rate of growth in credit and charge card spend slipped a little to a still strong 17.3 per cent; and
· the growth metrics for commercial cards continue to be very high.