By: Primax
The Spring 2025 Spending Report, a special edition of the Primax Payments Pulse, explores year-over-year, same-store financial institution comparisons and provides a view of consumer transactions and trends during the first three months of 2025.
This report also does a Deep Dive into Digital Payments, revisiting the ways credit and debit cards are used, as well providing a look at “digital payments,” which represent alternative ways cards can be used without a physical card being required to facilitate the transaction. The data includes all Card Not Present (CNP) activity, as well as all tokenized transactions, including Card Present (CP) tokenized activity associated with digital wallets like the “Pays” — Apple Pay, Google Pay, Samsung Pay, etc.
Key Takeaways
Key takeaways from the Primax Payments Pulse: Spring 2025 Spending Report include:
- The consequence of tariffs on consumer spending could have a profound impact on 2025 payment results, with mixed thoughts on timing. Price increases could begin to materialize in the coming weeks, while others could take a few months depending on supply chain constraints. Tariffs could impact nondiscretionary spending in basic categories like supermarkets, drug stores and discount stores, and we continue to monitor changes in consumer discretionary spending as well. While year-over-year growth remains positive in debit discretionary activity, results have softened from the start of the year, which could be a preemptive measure by consumers in advance of high inflationary prices.
- Softer growth rates were apparent for the first quarter of 2025 for both credit and debit, with debit outperforming credit. Debit purchases were up 4.2% and credit purchases were up 0.6%. Debit transactions were up 1.7% and credit transactions were up 0.8%. The Money Services and Services sectors were the largest contributors to growth for debit and credit, respectively. The Goods sector was the top contributor to growth in both credit and debit transactions.
- The Deep Dive into Digital Payments revealed that over 40% of all transactions were digital (41% debit and 46% credit) for the quarter ending March 2025. For the same timeframe, at least half of all card purchases were digital (51% debit purchases and 56% credit purchases).
- The Digital Payments Deep Dive also revealed that digital wallets continue to grow in popularity, with 8% of all debit transactions (CP & CNP) taking place via a digital wallet and 5% of all credit transactions (CP & CNP) via a digital wallet for the January to March 2025 timeframe. Apple Pay maintained its market share dominance based on total digital wallet transactions, with debit transactions representing 94% of all digital wallet debit transactions and credit transactions representing 90% of all digital wallet credit transactions. Google Pay follows with the second-most market share, then Samsung Pay with the third-most market share.
Looking Ahead
The impact of tariffs has not yet been fully reflected in the latest Primax data, but it is beginning to influence spending behavior. We will closely track how tariff developments shape spending behaviors in the coming months.
The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) met on May 7, and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell indicated that interest rates would remain unchanged for the benchmark overnight rate of 4.25% to 4.5%. The Fed is taking a more wait-and-see approach given the uncertainty in the economy due to tariff implications, employment rates and potential inflation. The next FOMC meeting concludes June 18, where any subsequent rate adjustments will be communicated.
We hope that our financial institutions are able to best serve their customers by leveraging insights from this and future special reports of the Primax Payments Pulse to help make informed and strategic decisions.