13 December 2007
Consumers seem to be using cash to fund their retail purchases for Christmas - potentially at the expense of credit cards.
Cash machine network operator LINK said yesterday that daily ATM withdrawals for the first ten days of December are up by 7.1% over last month.
According to LINK, this figure has been closer to 5% for the previous four years.
Figures from payments association APACS, released last month, predicted a fall in cash spending of 5% over the festive period - dropping from £19.8 billion in 2006 to £18.9 billion.
The APACS study predicted a total festive retail spend of £53 billion - a rise of 4% over last year's figures, which it said would be driven by increased card spending.
However, fears of the ongoing credit crunch appear to have led consumers to curb their card spending and, increasingly, to fund their purchases with cash instead.
This appears to be borne out by latest overall retail spending figures, also released yesterday.
According to credit card firm MasterCard, weak sales were registered in shops for November - slowing the annual retail sales growth rate from 4.5% to 4%.
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