Spending intentions increase for education, fitness & health 

The latest Commonwealth Bank Household Spending Intentions data has revealed increases in health & fitness and education spending in June 2021 in comparison to June last year.

This increased spending reflects a greater consumer focus on wellbeing activities resulting from COVID-19. The biggest health spending increases were in doctors, hospitals, medical labs, nursing & personal care, orthopaedic, osteopaths and podiatrists. Fitness spending increases were also seen in commercial and professional sports and club memberships.  

The number of education related transactions was also up, with the largest increase in the value of these transactions seen in elementary and secondary schools. This reflects both an increase in education fees, along with a greater number of children enrolled in fee paying schools.

CBA Chief Economist Stephen Halmarick said a fall in spending intentions in most categories in June 2021 relative to June 2020 was not surprising, given elevated household spending last year as most parts of the country came out of the initial COVID-19 lockdown.

Pleasingly however, spending intentions across most categories in June 2021 was higher than June 2019 (considered the last ‘normal’ year), underpinning the continued robustness of the economy.

“Lower CBA HSI data in most categories in June compared to June 2020 reflects the pick-up in spending as the country came out of the initial lockdown last year. However increased spending intentions compared to 2019 underlines the ongoing strength of the economy, which is reflected in a wide range of other key economic data sources,” Mr Halmarick said.

“Last month’s increased spending in health & fitness on the prior year reflected a continued heightened consumer focus on this area. Increased spending on commercial and professional sports and club memberships also reflected changes to restrictions in June and an ability to attend these events and venues.  Unfortunately, of course, this has changed again in July with the lockdowns in Greater Sydney and Melbourne.”

CBA’s HSI series offers a forward-looking view by analysing actual customer behaviour from CBA transactions data, along with household spending search activity from Google Trends. This combination provides a unique insight on prospective household spending trends in the Australian economy.
 

Health & Fitness Spending Intentions                                             

Education Spending Intentions

Notes for Editors:

About our monthly Household Spending Intentions series

Each month, analysis by CBA’s Global Economic and Markets Research team provides an early indication of spending trends across seven key household sectors in Australia. In addition to home buying, the series covers around 55 per cent of Australia’s total consumer spend across; retail, travel, education, entertainment, motor vehicles, and health and fitness.

The HSI series offers a forward-looking view by analysing actual customer behaviour from CBA’s transactions data, along with household search activity from Google Trends.

The approach focuses on Australian households and their spending intentions. Near real-time spending readings from CBA’s household transactions data was combined with relevant search information from Google Trends to map the data results on consumer spending. Households are the dominant part of the economy and drive much of its activity and volatility, and this combination adds to insights on prospective household spending trends in the Australian economy.

Google Trends is a publically available service that enables people to explore search trends around the world. These searches provide insights into what consumers are doing/researching on the Internet and what their spending intentions are.

CBA’s Household Spending Intentions series is published on the third Tuesday of every month. To find out more about the series, visit www.commbank.com.au/spendingintentions.

Disclaimer

The information contained in this media release is published solely for informational purposes and provides general market-related information, and is not intended to be an investment research report. This media release has been prepared without taking into account your objectives, financial situation (including the capacity to bear loss), knowledge, experience or needs. Before acting on the information in this media release, you should consider its appropriateness and, if necessary, seek appropriate professional or financial advice, including tax and legal advice. The data used in this media release is a combination of ‘CBA transaction data’ and Google Trends™ data. Google Trends is a trademark of Google LLC. The term ‘CBA transaction data’ refers to the proprietary data of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia ("the Bank") that is sourced from the Bank’s internal systems and may include, but is not limited to, credit card transaction data, merchant facility transaction data and applications for credit. The Bank takes reasonable steps to ensure that its proprietary data is accurate and that any opinions, conclusions or recommendations are reasonably held, or are made at the time of compilation of this media release. As the statistics take into account only the Bank’s data, no representation or warranty is made as to the completeness of the data and it may not reflect all trends in the market. All customer data used or represented in this media release is anonymous and aggregated before analysis, and is used and disclosed in accordance with the Bank’s Privacy Policy Statement.

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