The Bay of Plenty has recorded the highest spending growth in the month of May with electronic transactions up 10.2 per cent.

Canterbury saw an increase of 8.6 per cent, and Waikato increased by 8.5 per cent.

People got their cards out of their wallets 10.2 per cent more in the month of May.

Growth was slow in Wellington which recorded a 3 per cent increase and the West Coast with a 1.8 per cent increase.

At a sector level, trading was strong for those operating in the hospitality sector, with a 14 per cent increase year on year.

Food and liquor stores also recorded an increase of 12.3 per cent in spending from the same month last year.

Paymark head of customer relations Mark Spicer says the figures released today by Paymark point towards a strong and consistent month of trading during May, with annual growth in the volume of transactions processed through its switch the fastest since 2008.

'After a rapid first week of trading, spending evened out and finished up at an overall growth rate of 8.7 per cent for the month. Stronger trading throughout May can be explained by a number of factors.

'Paymark has had a 3.5 per cent increase in the number of merchants using our network, year on year, the rise of contactless continues to make its effects felt in our data and it also looks as if there has been an improvement in spending within most of the sectors we report on –though not all.”

In terms of other factors that might play a part in the strong spending data, Mark says May also had five Saturdays this year, whereas last year there were only four.

'With Saturday being the day of the week that typically results in the highest volume of transactions processed through our network, this will have impacted the data and trends we've seen in May.”

He says the trends associated with credit card spending outstripping debit cards has continued and 'this is something we can expect to see on an on-going basis, as more and more contactless cards come into the market and merchants enable their terminals to accept this payments method”.