Overall credit card spending in New Zealand added a seasonally adjusted 0.1 percent on month in August, Statistics New Zealand said on Thursday.
That follows the downwardly revised 1.0 percent increase in July (originally 1.1 percent).
Retail credit card spending gained 0.5 percent on month to NZ$4.5 billion after adding 0.4 percent in the previous month.
It's also up NZ$181 million or 4.2 percent from a year earlier.
Transactions in the core retail industries (which excludes the vehicle-related industries) jumped 0.9 percent after rising 0.6 percent in July.
"Increased card spending for the core retail industries kept the overall retail sales values up this month," business indicators senior manager Neil Kelly said. "In contrast, both the vehicle-related industries fell in August, with fuel having the largest fall, due to lower prices."
Durables (up 1.3 percent) had the largest increase of the four core industries.
Trends for the total, retail, and core retail series have generally been rising since these series began in October 2002, the bureau said.
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