Spain | Impact of COVID-19 on consumption in real time and high frequency in dec-20

Spending with BBVA credit and debit cards or BBVA POS terminals grew 6% year-on-year in December, 10 points more than in November, due to the rise in transactions with Spanish cards, both face-to-face (5%) and online (56%).

Key points

• Key points:
• Spending increased in 35 provinces (17 in November) and decreased in 17 (35 in November). The increase exceeded 15% year-on-year in Ceuta, Melilla, Madrid, Jaén, Guadalajara and Ourense. On the contrary, Huesca, Illes Balears, Barcelona and León registered falls of more than -10%.
• Food, books and press, home, health, technology, leisure, sports, department stores and other services boosted purchases in December. Social consumption activities and those involving travel contributed negatively.
• In the year as a whole, card purchases fell -5%. This is explained by the contraction in face-to-face spending (-9%), both with Spanish cards (-4%) and, above all, foreign cards (-61%).
• Although spending grew in 20 provinces in 2020, such as those in the northwest, the center (Madrid, Castilla-La Mancha and Extremadura) and some in the south (Cádiz, Córdoba, Jaén, Ceuta and Melilla), it was insufficient to offset the reduction in 32, such as the Mediterranean, those of the north and northeast and those of Castilla y León.
• In the week of January 4 to 10, spending increased in 26 provinces, but the deterioration of consumption in the territories with a greater weight of tourism and the repercussions of the storm “Filomena”, especially in the center of the peninsula, decreased card transactions by -3% year-on-year. In the Community of Madrid, face-to-face purchases decreased by -24% year-on-year and in Castilla-La Mancha by -8%, compared to -4% in the rest of Spain.

Authors

Geographies

Topics

Tags