Solar eclipse sent Iceland’s card payments down 81%

Card payments in Iceland fell by 81% when the total solar eclipse reached its peak over Reykjavík, according to an analysis by payment processor Teya reported by mbl.is.

The eclipse peaked at 5:48pm on August 12. Between 5:44pm and 5:51pm, card transactions were down 74% compared with a typical Wednesday. The country returned to normal activity within about 15 minutes.

Teya’s data also showed a clear movement of people towards western Iceland in the days before the eclipse. At the peak, the number of active cards on the Snæfellsnes peninsula was 3.4 times higher than usual. In the Westfjords, the number of active cards peaked one day before the event.

August 12 was the busiest day ever recorded on Snæfellsnes in Teya’s data, with activity 117% above the previous record. The four highest-turnover days ever recorded in the region all occurred during the week of the eclipse.

Foreign visitors also affected the figures. US payment cards accounted for more transactions than those of the next nine largest nationalities combined. Use of British and Polish cards increased nearly sixfold compared with normal levels.

Despite the large number of visitors in western Iceland, Teya detected no traffic surge when people returned home. The return journey was spread steadily across Wednesday evening and all of Thursday, when activity in western Iceland remained 50% to 90% above normal.

The analysis covers card transactions at Teya merchants across Iceland from August 8 to 13, compared with the median for the same weekdays during the previous three weeks.