RSS Feed

Related Articles

Related Categories

Last minute Christmas spending approaches £9.15 billion

13th December 2006 Print
This Christmas, it would appear that people intend to spend less on their festive shopping than they did last year. With only a week to go to Christmas, new research from Sainsbury’s Credit Cards indicates that the nation intends to spend some £9.15 billion during the last week before Christmas - £446.6 million less than the bank’s research identified this time last year.

Sainsbury’s Bank, whose standard and platinum credit cards offer 0% APR on purchases for a full 10 months, one of the longest interest free period currently available, says that around 18% of this last minute spending – some £1.62 billion - will be placed on credit cards. Around 6.54 million people intend to put half or more of their last minute Christmas shopping on their credit cards. The corresponding figure for last year was 8.9 million people.

Donald MacLeod, credit card manager, Sainsbury’s Bank said: “Credit cards can be a safe and convenient way to do your Christmas shopping. However, if you don’t think you will be able to clear all of your expenditure by January, you may want to consider spreading the cost with a card that offers an introductory rate of 0% APR on purchases.”

The bank’s research reveals that 887,000 people intend to spend more than £1,000 during the last seven days before Christmas and a further 2.62 millionpeople intend to spend between £501 and £1,000. During this period, on average, men intend to spend £257.15 and women £173.69.

Around Britain, people in London expect to spend the most in the run up to Christmas and those in the Wales and the West the least.

Of those planning to do some last minute Christmas spending only 52% expects to clear this by the end of January. 18% expect it to take between two and three months to clear and 8% anticipate it will take between four and 12 months.

The Sainsbury’s Bank Standard and Platinum credit cards offer an introductory APR of 0% on purchases for 10 months, one of the longest period available. It also offers a competitive 5.9% APR for the life of balances transferred in the first six months with no balance transfer fee. Customers also receive an exclusive book of money-off vouchers to use at Sainsbury’s.

Sainsbury’s Bank was recently named “Best New Credit Card Product of the Year 2006” at The Credit Card Awards and was named Best Credit Card Provider (Introductory Rate) 2006, by Moneyfacts.