Households cut back on their spending in April at the fastest pace in 18 months, as the conflict in the Middle East provoked fears of another cost of living crisis, a report from one of the UK’s biggest banks has suggested.

Barclays, which processes nearly 40% of the UK’s credit and debit card transactions, said its data showed there had been a 0.1% fall in card spending last month compared with a year earlier. This was the first year-on-year fall since November 2024.

The bank, which analyses the hundreds of millions of transactions made on its debit and credit cards each month, said non-essential spending fell by 0.3% as consumers cut back on discretionary spending.

Travel spending fell by 5.7% in April, after a 3.3% decrease in March, with airlines down 8.3%, while spending on eating and drinking flatlined in April.

However, perhaps in a sign that households were choosing to stay in and save money, spending on digital content and subscriptions rose 9.2% in April compared with a year earlier, which…