Tracking Every Stage of Your Life… Your Credit Card Reveals Who You Are
2017-02-20 09:00 United Daily News, Reporter Sun Chung-ying / Taipei
Source: https://udn.com/news/story/7239/2294939
Image source: pixabay
Do you remember when you got your first credit card?
In Taiwan, you can apply for a supplementary credit card at age 15, and hold a primary card at age 20. If a person uses a credit card from age 15 to 80, their "credit card years" will span as long as 65 years. No matter how long you have been a cardholder, looking back on this journey of spending, do you have a clear picture of what you charged to your card at each different stage of your life?
Some people swipe their cards with careful planning; others do so on impulse. Fortunately, big data databases can now be used to analyze your spending patterns.
The Joint Credit Card Processing Center divided cardholders into 8 age groups, categorized spending into 7 major categories — "food, clothing, housing, transportation, culture/education/recreation, department stores, and others" — and measured spending by the number of transactions. The first finding is that "food is the foremost necessity of the people," which indeed holds true for cardholders aged 50 and above.
Ages 50–80: Most Willing to Spend on Food
According to data from the Joint Credit Card Processing Center, across the four age groups from 50 to 80 (and above), the largest category of spending transactions in every group is "food" — encompassing all types of dining, including Chinese and Western cuisine, Japanese and Korean food, various snacks, and health food products.
Breaking it down further, cardholders aged 60–70 and 80 and above each spend more than 30% of their monthly transactions (by number) on the "food" category, while cardholders aged 70–80 account for as high as 42.16%.
The older the cardholder, the higher the proportion spent on food and dining. The Joint Credit Card Processing Center notes this may be related to older individuals having stable income from work, making them more willing to spend at high-end restaurants to enjoy fine dining, or to purchase premium health food products to nourish themselves.
Ages 20–50: Cars and Consumer Electronics
So what are cardholders under 50 spending on? The Joint Credit Card Processing Center found that across the three age groups from 20 to 50, the largest category of transactions for all groups is "others," which includes insurance premiums, jewelry, car purchases, home purchases (down payments only), and computers and consumer electronics. Cardholders aged 30–40 and 40–50 each spend over 30% of their monthly transactions (by number) on the "others" category, while the 20–30 age group accounts for 29.42%.
The Joint Credit Card Processing Center explains that people aged 20 to 50 are at a life stage that transitions from being single to establishing a home and career, and naturally fall into the standard pattern of buying cars, purchasing homes, taking out insurance, and acquiring consumer electronics — all of which become the dominant spending categories at this stage.
Ages 40–50: The Most Generous Spenders
Since "others" category items — such as insurance or down payments on a home — are high-value purchases, a single transaction can run into the tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of New Taiwan dollars, keeping overall spending in this category consistently high. For example, cardholders aged 40 to 50 spend more than NTD 20 billion in a single month on the "others" category alone.
What do cardholders under 20 spend the most on? The Joint Credit Card Processing Center notes that by number of transactions, cardholders under 20 spend the most on "transportation," which accounts for approximately 25.52% of their spending. This is primarily because young people at this stage are mostly still in school or just entering the workforce, and the majority are commuters — so naturally, the proportion spent on transportation is higher.
Looking at transaction counts, the Joint Credit Card Processing Center notes that "food, transportation, and others" are the top spending categories across all 8 age groups. However, the proportions for "clothing (apparel, shoes, leather goods, etc.)" and "housing (hotel accommodation, etc.)" are relatively low, each accounting for roughly 2–4%.
As for "culture, education, and recreation," because it includes tuition fees and cram school expenses, families with children tend to spend more in this category. For example, cardholders aged 30–40 and 40–50 spend approximately NTD 5.5 billion and NTD 6.7 billion per month respectively on culture, education, and recreation — higher than all other six age groups.