Christmas has been a boom time for many retailers with an extra €380 million being spent in the run-up to Santa's Big Day, than in 2015.
From November 28th to December 25th, withdrawals and purchases logged by the ATM machine network shows that over €5.6 billion left shoppers’ bank accounts.
This level of spending is €600 million higher than in the dark days of Christmas 2011, the year the Troika came to town.
SIBS, the manager of Portugal's multibank machine network, has confirmed what retailers have been saying, Portuguese shoppers are more confident and have spent more this Christmas than at the same time last year, with ATM activity up 7.3%.
Between November 28th and December 25th, cash withdrawals totalled €2.397 billion and €3.227 billion was spent on bank cards with the transaction peak logged by the ATM system hitting 267 per second.
