Figures relating to Christmas spending have been released and show a fall in credit card spending.

According to the UK payment association, Apacs, around £10 billion was spent on credit cards in December last year, which is a fall by 4.8 per cent, in comparison to spending in December 2007.

The firm revealed in December, last year that a total of £30.9 billion was spent through plastic, by British consumers; a 0.3 per cent rise in comparison to the year before.

Although the spending rose by a small margin, the number of transactions increased by a bigger proportion, of 4.2 per cent. This is because consumers are buying more goods, but less expensive items. The average transaction value was £44.95; the lowest it has been for six years.

Sandra Quinn the director of communications at Apacs said: “Also, this fits in with what supermarkets were reporting - in that people were buying the same number of items but opting for cheaper budget alternatives.

She added: “The fall in credit card spending follows the trend we've seen over the last four years with customers continually preferring to put most of their card spending on debit card.”