Record number of electronic payments processed

On Wednesday 23 December 2009, a total number of 10,867,903 debit and credit card payments were processed. Last year's daily record, which dated from Wednesday 24 December 2008, amounted to 9,783,925 transactions. The new daily record thus exceeds the old record by more than 11 per cent.

The existing peak record has also been broken. On Thursday 24 December our systems processed an average of 408 transactions per second between 14:00 - 14:30. This means an increase of almost 8 per cent in comparison with the existing record of 378 transactions per second, which dated from Wednesday 24 December 2008. The new peak record lies far beneath Equens' maximum system capacity, as our systems are able to handle peaks of over 500 transactions per second.

In this year's period before Christmas, from Saturday 19 December up to and including Thursday 24 December, a total number of 46,565,399 debit and credit card payments were processed. Last year, when this period was one day shorter (from Saturday 20 December - Wednesday 24 December), the total number amounted to 38,502,700.