Monthly electronic card transactions in New Zealand

Retail series: includes the core retail series plus the motor vehicles and fuel industry groups.
Core retail series: includes consumables, durables, hospitality, and apparel industry groups.

Consumables: Includes food and liquor retailing
Durables: Includes furniture, hardware, and appliance retailing; pharmacy, cosmetic, and toiletry retailing
Hospitality: Includes accommodation, bars, cafes and restaurants, and takeaway retailing
Apparel: Includes clothing, soft-goods, and footwear retailing
Motor vehicles: Includes automotive parts and accessories; vehicle and tyre retailing
Fuel: Automotive fuel retailing
Services: Includes personal and household services, including hire and repair; automotive electrical and repair services
Non-retail (excluding services): Includes travel and health, and wholesaling

Cash out: cash taken out at a point-of-sale terminal, with or without a purchase.
Debit card: card used for debiting money directly from a bank account. Also commonly referred to as eftpos, cash, or ATM card.
Debit transactions: where the purchaser uses the cheque or savings buttons on the point-of-sale terminal.
Eftpos: electronic funds transfer at point of sale.
Card-not-present transactions: purchases made using a credit card, via telephone, mail order, Internet, or credit card direct debit where the card is not present for the transaction.

Seasonally adjusted series: Stats NZ use the X-13ARIMA-SEATS package to produce the seasonally adjusted estimates and trend estimates for the three series: total, retail, and core retail ECT. Seasonal adjustment aims to eliminate the impact of regular seasonal events (such as annual cycles in agricultural production, winter, or annual holidays) on time series. This makes the data for adjacent months more comparable. There is no specific adjustment made for leap years in these series.

http://datainfoplus.stats.govt.nz/Item/nz.govt.stats/ba3649c2-07d8-4c34-a10f-659eb22d6d3e

One of the respondent companies includes cash-out data, but the other excludes them.
One of the respondent companies includes manual, voucher-based credit card transactions, but the other excludes them.

• all debit, credit, and charge card transactions with New Zealand-based merchants
• card-present transactions at the point of sale, whether authorised by PIN or signature
• card-not-present transactions (eg payments of invoices; mail order, telephone, and Internet sales via credit card; or direct debit from credit cards) where the card is not presented directly at a point-of-sale terminal
• GST.

• all credit card transactions with non-New Zealand-based merchants (eg. via the Internet, telephone, or mail order)
• transactions by New Zealand card-holders while overseas
• cash, cheque, or hire purchase transactions
• automatic payments or direct debits from bank accounts
• Internet bank account payments
• withdrawals from ATMs.

At URL provided, download 'Electronic card transactions: March 2026 – CSV' under the Download Data heading.

Electronic Card Transactions (ECT) is a monthly series that covers all debit, credit, and charge card transactions with New Zealand-based merchants. This information can be used as an indicator of the change in the level of consumption expenditure and economic activity in general.