Top 150 Debit Card Issuers Worldwide

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.

Card Manufacturers—Part 2

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.

Global Brand Cards Midyear 2022

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. 

POS Device Manufacturers

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. 

Top 150 Credit Card Portfolios Worldwide

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.