There are over 90 general purpose card brands worldwide that operate only in their native country. These cards can be debit or credit. Collectively, they generated $516.05 billion in purchase volume in 2021.
The largest global networks of merchant acceptance locations belonged to Visa and Mastercard at the end of the third quarter of 2022. Both can firmly identify more than 80 million in-store and online outlets and micromerchants that use smartphones or handheld tablets to accept card payments.
Spending for goods and services—purchase volume—initiated by the 150 largest issuers of debit cards combined reached $11.164 trillion in 2021, an increase of 12.9% over 2020.
Spending for goods and services—purchase volume—initiated by credit cards issued by the 150 largest portfolios worldwide reached $12.695 trillion in 2021. This was up 9.4% from $11.605 trillion in 2020.
Shipments of payment cards in 2021 by manufacturer were published in issue 1229. The table on the next page shows shipments by manufacturer of SIM cards, transportation/ticketing cards, private label prepaid cards, phone cards and nonpayment cards such as those for identification, access control, membership/loyalty, promotions, healthcare, driver’s licenses, etc.
From January 1 to June 30, 2022, Visa, UnionPay, Mastercard, JCB, Diners Club/Discover and American Express brand credit, debit and prepaid cards collectively generated 286.20 billion purchase transactions for goods and services worldwide. This was up 10.2% from the same period in 2021.
PIN pads, dongle-type card readers, other types of card readers, electronic cash registers (ECR) and devices that scan QR codes but do not accept cards were not covered in issue 1228, which featured shipments of POS terminals.
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.
BlockFi, a crypto exchange, filed for bankruptcy protection. The company has offered a Visa brand credit card product since July 2021.
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.
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