|
|
Press
releases _
The total card purchase amount nearly equalled cash withdrawals for the year and exceeded them in the final quarter
ServiRed cards used to pay for 9.5% of all private consumption in 2006
Purchases made with cards issued by members of ServiRed (*) in 2006 amounted to 56.35 billion euros, a 16% increase over the preceding year. Despite this uptrend, card purchases continued to represent only 9.46% of household consumer spending, up slightly from the 8.73% posted in en 2005, according to Spain’s National Institute of Statistics (INE).
End-year ServiRed data confirms the rising trend of card use over cash, and while in annual terms cash withdrawals from ATMs surpassed card purchases, in the last quarter, card purchases outstripped cash withdrawals for the first time.
ServiRed members ended the year with 37 million cards issued, up 6.9% for the years, along with a total of 429,235 active point-of-sale terminals and 30,568 ATMs.
Card purchases made by ServiRed cardholders beyond Spain’s borders climbed by 28.4% in the year to 3.88 billion euros, while purchases made with foreign cards at Spanish merchants using ServiRed terminals rose 14.2% to 5.08 billion.
ServiRed cardholders abroad spent the most in the United Kingdom last year –698 million euros– followed by France, with 431 million, the United States, with 305 million, and Germany, with 179 million. Total ServiRed card purchases within the European Union came to 2.44 billion euros, a 37.62% increase from 2005.
Residents of the United Kingdom accounted for the greatest amount of card purchases –1.25 billion euros– at ServiRed merchant terminals in Spain, followed closely by the French, with 999 million, the Germans, with 492 million, and U.S. residents, with 370 million. EU residents as a whole spent some 3.92 billion euros at ServiRed merchant terminals, a 15.37% increase from the previous year
Card Used at ATMs
Cash withdrawals with ServiRed cards grew by 7.3% in the year to 58.68 billion euros. The fourth quarter was the first in history in which the total amount of card purchases exceeded the total of cash withdrawals. The number of withdrawal transactions was about half that of card purchases, but the average withdrawal amount –110.54 euros– was about double that of the average card purchase – 53.27 euros.
Within Spain, some 80% of cash withdrawals were made though ATMs belonging to the card issuer, while 16.4% were made at ATMs belonging to other ServiRed members, and 2.3% were made through other payments networks. ServiRed cards were used to withdraw more than 693 million euros abroad, or 1.2 of total withdrawals.
(*) At the end of the year the ServiRed payments system had 103 members, including banks, savings and loan institution, and credit cooperatives.
|
 |
|
 |
