South Korea's credit card spending hit a record high in the third quarter, data showed Thursday, pointing to a recovery in domestic demand from the fallout of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome outbreak.

Total card spending reached 166.5 trillion won ($147.1 billion) in the July-September period, up 13.1 percent from a year earlier, according to the data compiled by the Credit Finance Association.

It marks the first time that the purchases made with credit cards broke the 160 trillion-won mark, the data showed.

"The record amount is attributable to better job market conditions and improved consumer sentiment," said CREFIA researcher Kim So-young, adding that MERS appears to have little effect on the economy now.

The MERS outbreak, which claimed 37 lives here, dealt a huge blow to domestic demand over the past months. South Korea, which experienced the second most infections from the virus outside Saudi Arabia, declared a de facto end to the MERS outbreak on July 28, about two months after it reported its first case on May 20.

The third-quarter figure also marks a second consecutive quarterly increase. During the January-March period, credit card spending fell to 145.3 trillion won from 152.1 trillion won from the previous quarter, but the figure rebounded to 157.2 trillion won over the following three months.

Most of the sectors saw the amount of credit spending grow in the third quarter.

In terms of online transactions, spending jumped 18.5 percent on-year to 15.7 trillion won, and that in the retail sector rose 13.8 percent to 23.8 trillion won, according to the data.

Purchases with plastic at tourist facilities also increased 10.5 percent to 2.79 trillion won on the back of growing demand for traveling overseas. 

The average spending registered per card, however, slid 0.7 percent for credit cards and 6.9 percent for debit cards, the data showed. (Yonhap)