Data provided by Sociedade Interbancária de Serviços (SIBS), for the Autonomous Region of Madeira, for the 3rd quarter of 2024, show that the amounts related to the two main operations of the SIBS network (withdrawals and purchases through automatic payment terminals – POS), considered as a whole, amounted to 789.8 million euros (2.7% of the national total). This equates to an increase of 8.7% compared to the same period of the previous year (+6.1% in the country). This growth was mainly due to the rise of 12.6% in purchases through automatic payment terminals (+9.6% at the national level), since withdrawals registered a year-on-year decrease of 1.7% (-2.5% in the country).
The records, released this Monday by the Regional Directorate of Statistics of Madeira, also state that the overall increase mentioned above resulted from a 17.3% increase in international card transactions and a 5.9% growth in national cards. As a national whole, the changes were +6.2% and +6.1%, respectively.
Disaggregating national and international withdrawals, it can be seen that, in the 3rd quarter of this year, the former totalled 175.0 million euros, with the latter equating to 18.4 million euros, representing year-on-year decreases of 1.3% and 5.8%, respectively.
In turn, purchases through POS made with national cards amounted to around 403.9 million euros, an increase of 9.3% compared to the 3rd quarter of 2023, while those made with international cards amounted to 192.5 million euros, equivalent to an increase of 20.1% compared to the same period last year. Disaggregating the total purchases in person and online, it can be seen that the changes compared to the same quarter of the previous year were 8.6% and 168.8%, respectively, with online purchases accounting for only 6.0% of the total.
In the 3rd quarter of 2024, purchases made through POS were mostly made in the sectors of “Wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles” (54.0% of the total) and “Accommodation, restaurants and similar” (26.1% of the total). In these sectors, year-on-year increases of 9.3% and 13.0% were observed.
Samantha Gannon
info at madeira-weekly.com
