News

May prepaid use up 8.1% in SpendTrend Analysis

June 11, 2013

Payment processor First Data Corporation has released its First Data SpendTrend analysis for U.S. consumer spending in May. Prepaids maintained strong year-over-year growth, while checks continued their steady decline.

Dollar volume growth increased 6.0 percent in May compared to 5.1 percent in April.

Warmer weather across the nation generated shopper foot-traffic and drove purchases of spring and outdoor seasonal merchandise.

Equity and housing markets also strengthened in May, which provided consumers with more confidence to spend. Transaction growth jumped to 5.8 percent in May, the highest growth since November 2012.

Retail dollar volume growth in May grew by 1.2 percent to 5.5 percent in May. For the first time since January 2013, all retail categories saw positive year-over-year dollar volume growth. 

Average ticket growth of 0.2 percent in May marked a slight drop compared to0.4 percent in April. 

"Credit card dollar volume and transaction growth accelerated and continued to surpass both PIN and Signature Debit growth," said said Krish Mantripragada, SVP of information and analytics solutions at First Data. "Overall healthy spending growth points toward encouraging consumer resiliency and increased confidence."

Read more about trends and statistics.