National payments provider Paymark expects consumer spending to increase in the coming months after recording higher-than-average transactions over the month of August.

The provider, which processes 75 per cent of all transactions in New Zealand, said it processed $5.1 billion in August despite talk of low business confidence and rising fuel prices.

This was a 6.5 per cent increase over the value of transactions Paymark processed in August 2017, a significant improvement over the 4.6 per cent averaged annual growth seen in the first seven months of the year.

Hardware stores saw the largest increase in growth year-over-year at 14.9 per cent, with garden centres seeing increased transactions of 8.2 per cent, while furniture retailers increased by 1.2 per cent.

Additionally, appliance stores experienced relatively fast growth of 6.9 per cent, while electronics retailers fell by 7.9 per cent compared to results the previous year.

Clothing and footwear retailers saw a slight decrease year-over-year of 1.1 per cent.

Geographically, growth in spending increased fastest in the smaller regions, with Gisbourne (11.5 per cent), Palmerston North (11.2 per cent), Marlborough (11 per cent) and Wanguani (10.1 per cent) leading the charge.

Conversely, the lowest growth rate was seen in Otago and Auckland/Northland at 5.5 per cent.