12/13/2023–|Last updated: 12/13/202309:27 PM (Mecca time)
Israelis’ use of credit cards fell by 15.8% last week – NIS 1.4 billion ($378.3 million) below the annual average – according to data cited by the Jerusalem Post from financial technology company Shiva.
Israeli consumer expenditures via credit cards during the ninth week of the war (December 3 to 9) amounted to about 7.7 billion shekels ($2.1 billion), compared to the average weekly spending of 9 billion shekels since the beginning of 2023, according to Shiva data. .
This spending also decreased by more than 2.5 billion shekels compared to the eighth week of the war (November 26 to December 2), bringing the percentage of spending decline to 24.8%.
The Jerusalem Post indicated that the hospitality and hotels sector are the most prominent sectors affected by this significant decline in spending, as they witnessed a decline of 71% for each, while the decline rate reached 65% for travel agencies and 24% for the entertainment sector, while the grocery and bakery sector recorded A decline of 18% compared to the average weekly spending on credit cards this year.
“We expected that the cessation of shopping offers at the end of November and the resumption of the war would lead to a decrease in the use of credit cards,” the newspaper quoted Tali Hollenberg, deputy director of marketing at Shiva, as saying.
The Israeli economy is suffering from major losses as a result of the war on Gaza following the launch of Operation “Al-Aqsa Flood” by the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) on October 7 last year.
The Governor of the Bank of Israel (Central Bank), Amir Yaron, previously expected that the costs of the war on the Gaza Strip would reach 10% of the gross domestic product, which is equivalent to 52 billion dollars.
