Spending falls despite lead up to Christmas

Despite Christmas creeping up on people, spending fell slightly in the second half of this month, research has found.

In its Weekly Christmas Spending Tracker, Visa found that spending was down by 3.7 percent for the week of the 19 November, compared to the same week in 2011. The week before this has fared better  registering a 1.2 percent increase.

Spending across four week averages also saw a slight decline of 0.8 percent.

Dr Steve Perry, Commercial Director at Visa Europe, said the flat spending meant that  retailers online and on the highstreet were going to have to work hard to extract the same level of spend as last year.

Visa said the findings came as the UK prepares for Mega Monday, which occurs on the 3rd December. It said it predicted that £320 million would be spent on Visa cards online with transactions topping 6.8 million.