Credit Card Spending Declines on Weekends, Highest Spending on Mondays

Due to the continuous recession, it turns out that credit card spending is the lowest on Sundays.

According to the research conducted by five credit card companies, including LG, Hyundai, Shinhan, BC, and Korea Exchange Bank (KEB), on credit card spending by the day of the week from May through July, results on Thursday, October 14 showed that Monday was the highest spending day and Sunday was the lowest.

In the case of BC Card, the credit card usage rate for Saturday and Sunday were 11.4 percent and 6.8 percent, respectively. This is somewhat lower than that for January through February when it was 14.8 percent for Saturday and 11.1 percent for Sunday.

A BC Card official said, "It seems that clients are cutting down on food and leisure expenses such as eating out, shopping, and performances due to the economic slump."

The credit card spending rate on Sundays for the other four companies, LG, Hyundai, Shinhan and KEB, all were around seven percent, marking 7.0 percent, 8.0 percent, 6.5 percent and 6.9 percent, respectively. Meanwhile, Monday spending for the five companies were all in the 20 percent level.

Seung-Jin Kim sarafina@donga.com