Abstract

In recent years, the demand for earlier and more frequent data on household consumption has grown significantly. One group of stakeholders for statistics on household consumption are financial institutions. Statistics Sweden has asked card issuers (banks), card acquirers and other payment service providers (PSP) to provide data on a weekly basis. It is to mention that the data transfer is not mandatory, it is bases on a common understanding for the demand on early and more frequent statistics. Annual consumption statistics draw on data from ten providers (here data provision is mandatory), the weekly indicator is based on seven out of these providers. In most cases, data is provided weekly, split by day. Statistics Sweden has developed a weekly consumption indicator that utilizes transaction data from card acquirers, card issuers and other payment service providers (PSP), providing near real-time insights into consumer behavior. Not only does card data enable us to produce early statistics, it also lowers the response burden. Instead of asking thousands of households, we can produce statistics based on the data provision of seven institutions.
We consider weekly statistics particularly valuable for detecting sharp turning points in the economy and for enhancing the timeliness and responsiveness of economic policymaking, especially during periods of rapid economic change. While also filling a critical information gap for the users. We believe that other countries aiming to strengthen their short-term economic monitoring may benefit from the results and could adopt the methodological models developed.
The paper will present the methodological approach, including data integrations techniques, statistical modeling and validation strategies, providing a detailed overview of the development and implementation of the weekly consumption indicator.

Thorsten Holzer, Statistician at Statistics Sweden
Daniel Lennartsson, Senior statistician at Statistics Sweden
Tod Salomonsson Segerby, Statistician at Statistics Sweden