Visa U.S.A. plans to announce today that transaction volume on its payment cards - including credit, debit, and prepaid - surpassed $1 trillion during the 12 months that ended March 31.
It said the amount of money spent on Visa-branded cards during that period (which was $1,011,731,505,994, to be exact) was more than the combined amounts spent on MasterCard-, American Express-, and Discover-branded cards.
Carl Pascarella, Visa U.S.A.'s president and chief executive officer, called the $1 trillion figure "a major milestone" that pointed to Visa's success in fostering electronic payments. "We're positioned in the future to take it to the next level," he said in a telephone interview Monday.
Categories that have had rapid growth and that are expected to produce more include quick-service restaurants, recurring payments (such as utilities), government payments, and bridge and toll payments.
Debit is another category for which Visa is optimistic. The association began promoting the Visa Check card heavily in 1995 and 1996, and debit card transactions now represent more than half of Visa transactions.
Mr. Pascarella said restrictions on signature-based debit as a result of the settlement of the Wal-Mart lawsuit should not be an impediment. "We're gearing up for even stronger use," he said. "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" and other emerging categories.
David Robertson, the editor of the card industry newsletter The Nilson Report, said he agreed that the $1 trillion figure was significant. Such a number is "so large that it can capture the sense of where payment systems are going," he said.
