Overview

Overall consumer spending increased 5.4% y/y in the week ending November 7 (biggest increase since early-September), as spending in Victoria roared back as lockdown restrictions began being lifted. Overall spending increased 7.0% in Victoria (first positive result since the first week of August), second only to WA (8.3%).

This week we take a closer look at Victoria. Victoria’s retail, hospitality and health services spending has recovered rapidly since major reopening on 27 October. While hospitality spending remains well below pre-pandemic levels, further increases to venue limits this week, combined with an extended run of low to no cases, should see further growth. For more detail see page 3.

Payments inflows into NAB merchants also showed a 2.7% increase in 6-week rolling y/y terms this week (-0.6% last week). Improvement came mainly from medium (7.9%) and small (6.1%) firms, with corporates lagging (0.6%) – although reversing 2 consecutive weeks of contraction.

For further details please see NAB Data Insights 12 November 2020 Report

*During these extraordinary times we have taken the decision to publish aggregated customer data categorised by industry segment with the view to helping provide clarity around which segments of the economy have been most affected by the broader macroeconomic trends at play. NAB takes data privacy very seriously. All customer transaction data has been aggregated and no individual’s data is specifically identified or analysed as part of this process. The data used in this report will not be sold or made publicly available, but insights from the data will be shared with the Australian people.