Visa International today announced that consumers and businesses globally used Visa more than ever over the holiday season, an increase of US$34 billion over last year. Buyers around the world turned to their Visa cards as a more convenient alternative to cash and cheques, with debit cards seeing the greatest growth.
Overall global holiday spending processed by Visa—during the company’s standardized 45-day peak processing period of 17 November to 31 December—increased 13 percent to US$291 billion, compared to US$257 billion over the same period in 2004. In all, Visa settled a total of 4.4 billion transactions during the holiday season, up 16 percent from the 3.8 billion transactions settled in 2004.
Spending on Visa debit and prepaid products, which access funds on deposit instead of a credit line, grew 22 percent to US$123.6 billion, compared to US$101.2 billion the previous year. Visa cardholders made well more than half of their holiday season transactions—57 percent—using debit, compared to 54 percent of transactions in 2004. Spending on Visa credit products grew as well, from US$155.7 billion in 2004 to US$167.3 billion in 2005, a 7.4 percent increase. All data are based on transactions processed through VisaNet, Visa’s global transaction processing network, and include both consumer and business transactions.
“The 2005 peak season was another record breaking year, with consumers around the world relying on Visa to make their holiday purchases,” said Matthew Piasecki, chief commercial officer, Visa International. “Whether purchases are made with credit, debit or prepaid cards, buyers are taking advantage of the unparalleled convenience, security, and flexibility of the Visa global network.”
Consumer e-commerce continues to grow with US$197.7 billion in spending for calendar 2005. Boosted in large part by holiday shopping, e-commerce grew 27 percent more than in 2004 when spending was US$155.4 billion
Regionally, the largest growth was seen in the Visa Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) region and in the Visa Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa (CEMEA) region. Visa LAC saw the number of Visa transactions increase by nearly 24 percent to 181 million. Spending on Visa cards grew by nearly 39 percent to US$6.7 billion, indicating higher average purchase amounts this season. In Visa CEMEA, the number of Visa transactions increased by 55 percent to 32 million, while spending on Visa cards grew by nearly 45 percent to US$3.1 billion.
Other seasonal highlights include:
• VisaNet, Visa’s global transactions processing network, performed with 100 percent reliability over the 45-day peak processing period
• Visa usage averaged 98 million transactions and US$6.5 billion per day, based on transactions cleared and settled
• Peak authorization rates increased 15 percent to 6,363 transaction messages per second
• 23 December was a banner day for VisaNet, Visa’s global transaction processing network, when the system processed 179 million transactions and cleared and settled US$8.5 billion and 122 million transactions from the previous day
For transactions submitted by merchants in any given day, Visa provides settlement early the next morning for the issuing and acquiring financial institutions (although in some locations such as Canada, merchants post weekend transactions the following Monday for settlement Tuesday). Based on these settlement volumes, the greatest day of global spending came with transactions made on 22 December and settled on 23 December, totaling at US$8.5 billion in a single day. In contrast, Canadian merchants submitted more transactions on 20 December than any other day with US$511 million settled on 21 December. The top spending day in Asia Pacific with US$210 million, CEMEA with US$99 million and Europe with US$1.9 billion was 19 December. The Visa LAC region saw the greatest day of spending on 23 December, with US$209 million. The US region also saw peak spending on 23 December with US$5.7 billion settled on 24 December.
About Visa holiday shopping data: Visa tracks holiday shopping trends based on its global transaction processing network, VisaNet. Reporting is standardized around a consistent 45-day period from 17 November through 31 December, enabling consistent year-on-year growth comparisons. However, January holidays including New Year’s Day and shopping and celebrations through Orthodox Christmas are excluded.
About Visa: Visa connects cardholders, merchants and financial institutions through the world's largest electronic payments network. Visa products allow buyers and sellers to conduct commerce with ease and confidence in both the physical and virtual worlds. As an association owned by 21,000 member financial institutions, Visa is committed to the sustained growth of electronic payment systems to support the needs of all stakeholders and to drive economic growth. For more information, visit www.corporate.visa.com.
