Commercial transactions made with credit cards dipped 1.1 percent in October from a year earlier, marking the first contraction since the government started compiling statistics in October 1993, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said Monday.
The ministry said credit-card purchases abroad plunged 16.6 percent due to a decline in overseas trips by Japanese after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States.
Credit-card payments at hotels and department stores decreased 4 percent, while those at restaurants shrank 1.5 percent amid weak private consumption in Japan.
Meanwhile, consumer loans offered by credit-card companies rose 0.9 percent in the reporting month.