Here’s how Danish spending has fallen since coronavirus hit

Denmark's Danske Bank has released a fascinating snapshot of how consumer spending has been affected by the coronavirus pandemic, with grocery spending doubling during panic-buying days, and sharp declines in spending on restaurants, hotels, transport, and non-food goods.

Published: 19 March 2020 15:05 CET

Here's how Danish spending has fallen since coronavirus hit

Spending in restaurants is down to a third of where it would be normally. Photo: Danske Bank

Danske Bank bases its figures on data from the transactions of about a million Danske Bank customers on MobilePay, credit and debit cards, so the report is one of the first reports from Europe on how the virus has impacted spending.

Louise Aggerstrøm, private economist at the bank, told The Local that the sharp falls in spending on restaurants, hotels, cinemas, clothing and transportation would have a heavy effect on the economy.

“It's going to be quite massive,” she said. “It might be helped a bit but this rise in grocery spending, but that's not going to keep on going forever.”

The bank plans next week to follow up the article with an assessment of how the drop in consumption might affect GDP.

Aggerstrøm said that if economy starts to open up as early as expected the fall in GDP could be kept in the very low single figures.

“For the year I think more it will be more like one percent,” she said. “That's based on the Danish economy opening up again by May, and that's of course a big if. So if I say one percent, it's a best-case scenario.”

Here's a graph of spending in supermarkets — note the big uptick on March 12 and March 17, when the government made major announcements.