Consumers continue to curb spending

Battered retailers have been dealt a fresh blow after

households tightened their belts again last month, according to figures compiled exclusively for Financial Mail by Barclaycard.

Despite strong figures from the British Retail Consortium for the opening two weeks of January, Barclaycard’s findings show total spending on debit and credit cards down sharply at retailers.

Total spending by consumers was almost unchanged (down 0.2 percent), but with inflation over the same period running at 2.5 percent this amounts to a marked fall in spending in real terms.