Tills look set to quieten on Christmas Eve

Tills look set to quieten on Christmas Eve after a record breaking lead up

There is still some fuel left in the tanks for shoppers, but Paymark is expecting a drop in electronic transaction volumes on Christmas Eve.

Momentum has been building through the week with shoppers clearly focussed on getting the most out of the last few days before Christmas. Electronic transaction volumes for the last three days are as follows:

• Thursday 21 December 3,055,258

• Friday 22 December 3,262,903

• Saturday 23 December 3,010,800

Record ever volumes were first set on Thursday 21st and then broken on Friday 22nd - the busiest day of the festive season to date - with nearly 3.3 million transactions, worth $197 million. At its peak the Paymark network was processing 99.5 transactions per second and 320,000 transactions an hour.

The overall increase in electronic transaction volumes for the year continued over the last few days prior to Christmas at around 7 percent.

“Shoppers have left their run late this year, taking advantage of the weekend to fill up the last of the stockings,” says Simon Tong, Chief Executive Officer, Paymark. “Predictably both Friday and Saturday were incredibly busy for retailers, and there will be little rest before preparing for the Boxing Day sales, which have become part of Kiwi retail culture.”

The Paymark network accounts for around 80 percent of all electronic transactions (debit, credit, online) in New Zealand and more than 60% of total retail sales. Even at the record volumes, of the last few days the Paymark network was running at only 29% of capacity.

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