$1 Trillion on Plastic

Visa, U.S.A. announced in June that transaction volume across all of its card products (credit, debit, prepaid) topped $1 trillion during the 12 months ending March 31, 2003. Visa claimed that this total exceeded the combined dollar transactions on MasterCard, American Express and Discover cards during the same period.

Visa expects further transaction growth through the use of the debit card for recurring payments (utilities, etc.). Debit card transactions now represent over half of all Visa transactions. In addition, the company expects further penetration at the retail point of sale, in spite of the setback to signature based debit card usage resulting from the settlement of the Wal-Mart lawsuit. Carl Pascarella, Visa U.S.A's president and CEO told the American Banker "We're gearing up for even stronger use. If you look at the penetration of debit cards, there's a lot of room for growth. Consumers are still learning about the product, and they're only using it at point of sale. Think about when we get running full guns on recurring payments."