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First Data posts September US SpendTrend report

October 11, 2013

First Data Corp., a provider of electronic commerce and payment processing services, has released its SpendTrend analysis for Aug. 31 through Sept. 30, compared with the same span last year. September's growth marked a slowdown with dollar volume growth of 3.6 percent, compared with 5.5 percent in August.

Overall dollar volume growth of 5.3 percent in September fell from last month's growth of 7.3 percent. The retrenchment in growth was largely due to slower back-to-school shopping activity compared to August, lower year-over-year gas prices and unseasonably warm weather.

Average ticket growth retreated in September with growth of -0.2 percent, compared to August's growth of 0.8 percent, and marked the first negative growth since December 2012.

"Consumer spending growth fell from last month's growth as back-to-school spending was weaker compared to August, and as the national year-over-year gas discount gap widened," said Krish Mantripragada, SVP of information and analytics solutions at First Data. "Although spending on credit led all payments, the growth marked a significant slowdown from last month as shoppers were likely more cautious about using credit to sustain spending."

sept spendtrend graph