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08/02/2010 -
Behind the high quarterly earnings and revenues announced by Visa and MasterCard last week was an indication that debit transactions are continuing to experience significant growth while credit card processing, which has been slow in recent years thanks to the recession, may soon rebound."Operating statistics within [the quarterly reports] show debit continues to boom while the unprecedented, recession-induced credit contraction over the past year may be nearing its end," Digital Transactions recently reported.
The electronic payment processing magazine cited Visa's debit payment volume of $238 billion in the first fiscal 2010 quarter, which represents a 15.4 percent year-over-year increase. In addition, Visa's credit card payment volume declined just 1.1 percent while transactions fell just 0.4 percent, both an improvement over recent numbers.
Meanwhile, MasterCard posted similar numbers, "although the No. 2 network's credit decline was steeper and its debit increase was not as great as Visa's," Digital Transactions reported.
The two payment processing giants are capitalising on this boom in debit cards and the continued popularity of credit cards by expanding into the Canadian payment processing market, a move which has been met with mixed results from industry incumbents.
