Credit Card Spending, the London 2012 Effect

Visa, sole payment card provider for this year’s Olympics, has announced bumper card spending during the 17-day duration of the Games.

Olympic Fever kicked off on August 2^nd, with Danny Boyle’s spectacular and inspiring opening ceremony, which was watched by 27 million people in the UK alone.  According to Visa, most of them must have been viewing with a glass of something in their hand, as

spending on drink on Visa cards was up by 8.3% from the same week the previous year, from £30.4million in week 30 2011 to £32.9 million in week 30 2012. 

The motto of this year’s games was ‘inspire a generation’ and it must have worked, as Visa card spending on sports equipment soared by over 10% in the first Olympic weekend.

Retail spending by visitors from overseas was up in the week leading up to the start of the games, with US nationals spending £54.6 million, and Japanese visitors spending £32.5 million.   Overall, spending by international visitors to the UK on Visa cards in that week (July 23-29) totalled a whopping £445.3 million.

These figures are only early indications of the final financial impact of the games, but the British government  has predicted an optimistic £2 billion boost. Any boost to the economy would certainly be very welcome, and the card spending spree reported by Visa could not have come at a better time, as the Bank of England recently reported a massive decline in card lending during July 2012.  According to their statistics, spending that month was down by £147 million, the sharpest drop for six years.