Australia’s peak shopping day will see a record 9.5 million ATM, Eftpos, debit, and credit card transactions processed on the busiest day of the Christmas season, National Australia Bank (NAB) research predicts.

NAB executive GM consumer leading,Angus Gilfillan, said Wednesday, December 23, the biggest day of the coming holiday season, would break records.

“We expect to see almost 10 million customer transactions on the busiest day of the Christmas period – that’s an increase of about one million more than last year,” he said.

The peak transaction rate is expected to hit 250 per second.

“The trend over the past eight years shows 23 December is the busiest shopping day for transactions processed through our systems.

“With Christmas falling on a Thursday this year we expect that trend to continue.”

The data also shows the last minute race to the shopping centre may be more crowded than ever before, with NAB predicting a record transaction rate at lunchtime on Christmas Eve.

“Our analysis shows customers will be shopping at a rate of close to 250 transactions per second, which would be the highest peak rate we’ve ever recorded,” Gilfillan said.

“In five out of the past six years the highest rate of transactions during Christmas has occurred between 12:15pm and 1:00pm – so don’t count on getting all your shopping done during your lunch time break.”