According to the Regional Directorate of Statistics of Madeira (DREM), the data provided by the Interbank Services Society (SIBS), for the Region, referring to the 1st quarter of 2024, show that the amounts related to the two main operations of the SIBS network (withdrawals and purchases through automatic payment terminals-TPA), considered as a whole, amounted to 632.4 million euros (2.6% of the national total), representing an increase of 7.0% compared to the same period of the previous year (+6.4% in the country).
This growth was mainly driven by the 10.4% increase in purchases through automatic payment terminals (+9.7% nationally), while withdrawals decreased by 1.1% year-on-year (-0.8% in the country).
It should also be noted that the overall increase mentioned above was due to both the 9.0% increase in international card movements and national card movements, which grew by 6.4%. In the national total, the changes were +13.3% and +5.8%, in the same order.
Disaggregating the withdrawals into national and international, it can be seen that the former totalled, in the 1st quarter of this year, 159.6 million euros, decreasing by 0.3% compared to the same period of the previous year, while the latter totalled 14.1 million euros, -9.5% than in the same period of 2023.
In turn, purchases through POS made with national cards were around 340.5 million euros (+9.9% than in the first three months of 2023), while purchases made with international cards amounted to 118.2 million euros (+11.8% than in the same period of the previous year).
In Q1 2024, purchases made through POS were mostly made in the sectors of ‘Wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles’ (57.8% of the total) and ‘Accommodation, food service and similar services’ (22.9% of the total). The set of these two subclasses of the Classification of Economic Activities (CAE Rev.3) concentrated 80.8% of the total purchases mentioned. In these sectors, year-on-year increases of 9.4% and 11.6% were observed, respectively.
Samantha Gannon
info at madeira-weekly.com
