Sending a parcel to France after making an online purchase may have been one reason that credit card sales shot up in June.

Credit cards sales online and on the high street were up by a tenth (9.9 per cent) in June compared to the same month last year.

The latest Barclaycard Retail Card Spending Index figures for June show that the amount spent on credit and debits has increased by over eight per cent for four months in a row, compared to the same months the year before.

And with hundreds of thousands of Brits living in France, it could be that part of the increase was down to people sending a parcel to France.

According to the British Retail Consortium (BRC) the figures for credit and debit card use is not to be found in the rest of the retail sector.

"The spending on credit cards alone is clearly not a reflection of retail spending as a whole," a spokesman said.

Overall, retail spending as a whole was up by just over one per cent for June compared a year ago, the latest BRC-KPMG Retail Sales Monitor found.