Westpac’s credit card tracker for the two weeks prior to the rate cut.
The Westpac-DataX Card Tracker Index* barely budged over the past fortnight, with the latest print coming in at 136.6, up a mere 0.1pts. After a rollercoaster few months, spending patterns appear to be normalising somewhat. So far, February’s reads have been on par with the 2024 average.
The quarterly pulse eased further, slowing to 0.6%qtr from 1.0%qtr in our previous update. We did anticipate some slowing, noting that the monthly pulse was weaker in our last update. The monthly pulse has fallen further, to -1.0%mth from 0.1%mth. That said, monthly measures are still coming through a bit of Christmas-New Year choppiness. Notably, the quarterly pace is still running slightly ahead of Q4’s 0.5%.
