PSCU Payments Index April 2023: A Deep Dive on Digital Payments
Summary: Welcome to the two-year anniversary of the PSCU Payments Index! We hope the evolution of these ongoing monthly insights continue to help our financial institutions navigate the evolving financial landscape to make informed, strategic decisions for their organizations and members. Throughout the month of March, slowing economic growth was prevalent in multiple key indicators, including consumer purchasing behavior. March 2023 data revealed softening consumer spending and lower average purchases for both credit and debit cards. The year-over-year growth rate in transactions was greater than the growth rate in purchases for both credit and debit cards, resulting in a drop in both average purchase amounts. In this month’s Deep Dive, we explore the ongoing growth in Digital Payments versus the more traditional Physical Card payments.
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Key takeaways include:
- Transactions grew at a higher rate than purchases for both credit and debit cards in March compared to a year ago, showing further evidence of temperance in consumer spending in the market. This phenomenon last occurred on credit cards in May 2020, when both transaction growth and purchase growth were negative. This result has not occurred on debit cards in PSCU Payments Index reporting or weekly transaction trends reporting since PSCU began this reporting in early 2020.
- For March, both credit and debit transactions were up 5% year over year. Credit purchases were up 3% and debit purchases were up 4% for March. This was the lowest year-over-year growth for credit card purchases since August 2020, when it was -1%.
- Digital Payments (defined as all Card Not Present, Mobile Wallets and tokenized activity) were significant and represented 44% of all credit transactions and 58% of all credit purchases in March 2023. For debit, Digital Payments made up 37% of all debit transactions and half of all debit purchases.
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