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 research predicts.

NAB Executive General Manager Consumer Lending, Angus Gilfillan, said 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 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,” Mr 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.”

Christmas 2014 transactions forecasts

This Christmas NAB expects more than 9.5 million ATM, EFTPOS, debit and credit card transactions processed on the busiest day of Christmas.

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

Wednesday 23 December will be Australia’s busiest shopping days for the festive season.

For the past four years the highest transaction rate has been between 12:15 and 1:00pm