The Central Financial institution of Kuwait information exhibits whole bank card spending by residents and residents dropped by 4.3% year-on-year within the first half of 2025, reaching 22.943 billion dinars, in comparison with 23.978 billion dinars throughout the identical interval in 2024 — a decline of 1.03 billion dinars.
The figures confirmed a big decline in ATM money withdrawals, down 10.3% (533.1 million dinars) to 4.618 billion dinars, whereas on-line (web site) transactions fell 8.4% (806.4 million dinars) to eight.813 billion dinars.
Nonetheless, the point-of-sale (POS) transactions bucked the pattern, rising 3.3% (305.2 million dinars) to 9.511 billion dinars.
From a geographical perspective, exterior (abroad) spending elevated 7.23%, or 100 million dinars, totaling 1.482 billion dinars. In distinction, home spending declined by 5% (1.13 billion dinars) to 21.46 billion dinars, accounting for 93.5% of all card-based spending.
By way of transaction exercise:
- POS system utilization soared 17.9%, reaching 471.6 million transactions
- ATM transactions declined 10.2% to 34.8 million
- On-line transactions fell 5.3% to 163.7 million
As for infrastructure, the variety of POS terminals elevated by 5.3% to 106,501, whereas the variety of ATMs dropped by 2.5% to 2,352 machines.