Provision of Card Spending Data

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) have been developing card spending data for the public good in partnership with data providers in the payment industry since 2019. The work so far, in conjunction with similar work undertaken by other National Statistical Institutes, has demonstrated the clear potentials of card spending data as new data sources for Official Statistics production as well as for providing granular, timely insights into the national and local economies.

In the next phase of our statistical development, ONS are seeking to work collaboratively with a UK data provider with high coverage and data granularity to jointly develop economic and statistical applications for ONS and wider UK Government based on card spending data. We expect working together on a cost-recovery basis, i.e. contract costs being proportionate to the actual costs incurred, in a value-exchange model.

For example, when developing new data and insights for ONS' purposes, data scientists from both organisations may work together to solve technical issues that bring additional value to the data provider beyond the partnership. Similarly, the data provider may benefit from ONS publications and statistical improvements based on their data through an enhanced corporate reputation.

We expect to build a strong partnership with the data provider, that goes beyond a transactional commercial arrangement, in maximising the public value of large transactional data.As part of the partnership, ONS would like to develop card spending data into new economic data that can improve National Accounts measurement and produce insights on consumer behaviour to: 1. understand retail performance of high streets and towns 2. understand spend by merchant location 3. understand spend by origin & channel. Further requirements include permissions for ONS to regularly publish articles and aggregated insights/datasets such as this recent publication on card spending flows across UK regions, and to enable cross-government access to the data through a secure data platform (such as the Integrated Data Service) to link to other government key data assets to produce further innovative, cross-cutting insights, as this recent joint publication by the Competition and Markets Authority and ONS.

ONS require the following information, in the form of 3 data tables. Retail Performance of High Streets and Town Spend by merchant location Spend by origin and destination The data tables will be aggregated to monthly totals (or more granular, subject to statistical disclosure control not affecting the utility of the data) and provided to ONS a monthly or quarterly basis.