Wellington, Dec 24 (IANS): With a record-breaking $255 million NZD ($196 million) spent across the country, New Zealand's electronic payment company, Paymark, Wednesday said Tuesday was the highest ever spending day.

Nationally, the peak transaction rate of 156 per second was recorded at 12.35 p.m Wednesday against 148 transactions per second in 2013, the New Zealand Herald reported.

Mark Spicer, Paymark's Head of Customer Relations, said the figures indicated that more people were shopping till the last minute.

"To give some sense of the change in the last few days, spending this Tuesday was up 45.1 percent. In terms of annual growth, spending at supermarkets and other food stores was up 12.7 per cent on the same day last year," Spicer said.

Consumers remained focused on home furnishings Tuesday with strong spending seen in furniture and floor coverings. This particular sector registered a 19.9 percent increase compared to 7.7 percent last year.

Meanwhile, spending at book and video stores were up by 9.8 percent. Clothing, apparel and jewellery spending increased to 2.6 percent.