Top 150 Credit Card Portfolios Worldwide — 2021

The 150 largest owners of Visa, UnionPay, Mastercard, American Express, JCB, Discover, Diners Club and domestic-market-only portfolios of outstanding credit card receivables as of December 31, 2021, are ranked on page 6.

Digital Currency Update

BlockFi, a crypto exchange, filed for bankruptcy protection. The company has offered a Visa brand credit card product since July 2021. 

Visa Direct Adds Digital Wallets with Thunes

Visa Inc., owner of VisaNet, the largest payment card network in the world based on merchant acceptance locations, has spent several years building Visa Direct, a capability within VisaNet for delivering funds transfers including remittances, payouts to independent contractors and other use cases for consumers and small businesses.  

Passkeys Replace Passwords

Protocols developed by the Fido Alliance and the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) have been combined to create public-key/private-key cryptographic message exchanges called passkeys, a replacement for knowledge-based passwords used to authenticate online transactions. 

Digital Currency Update

Mastercard added seven startups to its crypto accelerator program. The companies specialize in payments to merchants, remittances, privacy and loyalty, among other areas. Mastercard says that 350 companies have participated in the program since 2014.

The Largest Merchant Acquirers Worldwide — 2021

The 150 largest acquirers of general purpose credit, debit and prepaid card payments from merchants worldwide are listed here based on transactions processed in 2021. Total transactions of 416.55 billion processed by this group increased 17.9% from 2020.

Payment Card Shipments — 2021

Payment cards shipped by the manufacturers listed here totaled 4.47 billion in 2021. Included in the 2021 shipment figures were 3.73 billion chip cards and 638.9 million magnetic-stripe-only cards. 

Digital Currency Update

Plaid launched Wallet Onboard, a product that allows developers to offer connections among more than 300 self-custody crypto wallets using a single integration and a UI that is familiar to existing Plaid users. Wallet Onboard is built on Plaid Link, a platform that lets consumers connect their financial accounts across thousands of fintech apps and services.

Asia–Pacific’s Largest Merchant Acquirers — 2021

The Asia-Pacific (APAC) region’s 36 largest acquirers of UnionPay, Visa, Mastercard, JCB, American Express, Diners Club/Discover and domestic-market-only brand card payments are ranked here. They handled credit, debit and prepaid card transactions from 39.7 million APAC region merchant outlets in 2021.