There is such a thing as a Mastercard Love Index – and it’s getting bigger

Is romance in Asia-Pacific slowing down? And more importantly, is there an infographic for the previous question? The answers are no and yes, according to the Mastercard Love Index, which measures romantic activity in the form of consumer spending because it’s 2018 and capitalism is the only True Love that matters.

The third annual Mastercard Love Index – calculated by analyzing global credit, debit and prepaid transactions from February 11-14 between 2015 to 2017 – says that “sentimental spending” in the Asia Pacific region has heated up by 22% since 2015. Overall transactions during the Valentine’s Day period also shot up by 74% in that time frame.

As for what Asia’s lovers are spending their money on, it’s mainly dinner dates, travel (via planes or trains) hotels (… quite), and gifts. For the latter, says Mastercard, consumers in Philippines (71%) and Thailand (71%) are the region’s most enthusiastic givers, followed by China at 63% and Singaporeans at 59%. Gifts of choice: flowers and jewelry, which saw spending increases of 39% and 21%, respectively.

For the non-romantics among you who only care about which payment methods are the most popular, the index did track some changes in how people pay for all this:

Swiping took a left turn over the last three years, as contactless payments rise in popularity. Tap-and-go payments tracked a 46% increase in transactions made, while its value rose by 166%.

Meanwhile, appetite for online shopping has grown with a healthy 30% increase in the number of e-commerce transactions. Yet, as payments become more digitized, the power of the physical touch remains – 89% of Valentine’s Day transactions are still made in person.

Good news for those of you concerned that the digital economy will replace human interaction, then.

NOTE: One thing the index doesn’t cover in its Asia-Pacific figures is that a number of markets – including Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, Taiwan and China – have extended Valentine’s Day traditions in the form of “White Day“, which takes place on March 14. So it’s possible romance-related spending in those countries could be higher than the Mastercard index indicates.

Also, Korea has “Black Day” (April 14) for the people who don’t qualify for the first two Valentine’s Days. Isn’t that nice?

Didn’t we mention something about an infographic at the beginning of this post? Indeed we did. And here it is now.

If that’s not enough romance for you, here are some stats in chart form.