Both domestic, int'l spending takes hit

The country's credit-card transactions witnessed a 2.18-percent decline in November 2023, compared to the previous month, according to the Bangladesh Bank's data.
The total such transactions for November amounted to Tk 25.39 billion, as opposed to Tk 25.96 billion were recorded in October last year.
In addition, transactions made by Bangladeshi nationals outside the country totalled Tk 4.87 billion in November, a noteworthy decrease of 9.51 per cent from Tk 5.38 billion recorded in October, the data show.
Concurrently, credit card transactions within Bangladesh by foreign nationals decreased to Tk 1.93 billion in November last year from Tk 1.99 billion in the previous month, showing a decline of 2.77 per cent.
From the above data analysis, it can be said that in terms of amount Bangladeshi credit cardholders did around 2.51 times transactions outside the country compared to that of foreign nationals did within Bangladesh in November.
Transactions at departmental stores saw a decrease from Tk 13.17 billion in October to Tk 12.58 billion in November, accounting for 49.57 per cent and 50.73 per cent of total transactions respectively.
Retail outlet services noted a slight increase, rising from Tk 3.12 billion in October to Tk 3.33 billion in November, representing 12.04 per cent and 13.12 per cent of total transactions respectively.
Transactions related to utilities experienced a minor decrease, declining from Tk 2.34 billion in October to Tk 2.30 billion in November, accounting for 9.02 per cent and 9.06 per cent of total transactions respectively.
There was negligible variation in cash withdrawal transactions, with Tk 2.08 billion in October and Tk 2.07 billion in November, accounting for 8.01 per cent and 8.18 per cent of total transactions respectively.
Transactions within Drug and Pharmacies category declined from Tk 1.42 billion in October to Tk 1.30 billion in November, constituting 5.48 per cent and 5.15 per cent of total transactions respectively.
Clothing category experienced a decrease from Tk. 1.32 billion in October to Tk. 1.20 billion in November, representing 5.12 per cent and 4.74 per cent of total transactions, respectively.
A significant majority, nearly 72.29 per cent of the credit card transactions took place using VISA card, around 17.65 per cent of transactions utilised MasterCard while about 9.82 per cent of transactions were made with AMEX card.
The remaining transactions occurred through other types of cards in November.
Regarding the breakdown of cross-border transactions by country, the BB reveals that the majority of credit card transactions occurred in India, accounting for nearly 17.87 per cent.
The rest of the cross-border transactions was distributed across various countries: the USA (15.01 per cent), the UAE (8.49 per cent), Thailand (8.28 per cent), Singapore (7.10 per cent), Canada (6.76 per cent), the UK (6.71 per cent), Saudi Arabia (4.82 per cent), Malaysia (3.62 per cent), Australia (2.51 per cent), the Netherlands (2.50 per cent), Ireland (2.46 per cent) and other countries (13.86 per cent), the central bank's data said.

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