US Spending On MasterCard Credit And Debit Cards Slowing

Continue to see GDV [Gross Dollar Volume] growth slowing in the US……

MasterCard Investor’s Presentation, May 29, 2008, “2008 View” (pg. 61 of 69)

Take a look at this chart of US gross dollar volume growth on Mastercard credit and debit cards: MA US GDV Chart

It’s not anything dramatic but it does show slowing growth in US spending on MasterCard plastic.  Today they said that US spending continues to slow so it will be interesting to see what the number is for the second quarter (which won’t, however, be reported until the beginning of August).

Because Americans, and increasingly the world in general, use their credit and debit cards for so much spending, Mastercards number captures a big portion of consumer spending and is useful as a window into it.  For instance, Americans charged about $1 trillion to their MasterCard plastic in 2007.  According to today’s 1st quarter GDP report, Americans spent $10 trillion (annualized rate) on personal consumption expenditures in the first quarter of 2008 (see pg. 8, Table 3) so Mastercard spending would account for 10% of all US spending.

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