The five largest payment card issuers in the Latin America and Caribbean region are listed here. The 50 largest appear on page 11 of our current issue.

1. Itau Unibanco, Brazil
$126.43 billion general purpose volume
2. Banco Bradesco, Brazil
$81.71 billion general purpose volume
3. Bando do Brasil, Brazil
$67.72 billion general purpose volume
4. Banco Santander, Brazil
$55.92 billion general purpose volume
5. Caixa Economica Federal, Brazil
$49.48 billion general purpose volume

Full access to the Top General Purpose/Visa/Mastercard Card Issuers in Latin America results is available when you subscribe to The Nilson Report.

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POSTED OCT 16, 2019 | PRINT

Payment Cards Projected Worldwide

Please note: Only subscribers can access the charts included with this article.

There were 22.11 billion credit, debit, and prepaid cards in circulation worldwide on December 31, 2018. This included 13.68 billion Visa, UnionPay, Mastercard, Maestro, JCB, Discover/Diners Club, and American Express cards—the global brand general purpose cards—and 7.45 billion cards with domestic-only general purpose brands in over 60 countries. The largest domestic-only brands in number of cards in circulation were RuPay and Elo. Other brands included Mir, Troy, BC Card, Interac, eftpos, Cartes Bancaires, and girocard. Added to the global and domestic-only brands were another 6.98 billion private label credit, debit, and prepaid cards usable only at specific outlets, such as stores, fueling stations, airlines, etc.

Global brand general purpose cards, which accounted for 61.88% of all payment cards in circulation, were led by China-based UnionPay cards. UnionPay accounted for 34.36% of all payment cards worldwide. Visa ranked second with a 14.78% share, followed by Mastercard with 9.15%. American Express, Discover/Diners Club, JCB, and Maestro combined for 3.59%.

Private label cards, the majority of which are prepaid, accounted for 31.57% of all payment cards in circulation worldwide.

Domestic-market-only debit and credit general purpose cards usable at a variety of merchants within a specific country held a 6.56% share of the worldwide total. India-based RuPay held a 6.7% share of all domestic-only cards worldwide at the end of 2018.

In five years, the global total of payment cards in circulation will be 29.31 billion. Global brand general purpose cards will account for 5.37 billion of the 7.20 billion increase. Private label cards are projected to increase by 1.34 billion. Domestic general purpose cards are projected to increase by 0.49 billion.

UnionPay, Mastercard, domestic general purpose cards, and JCB are projected to be the global brands to increase their share—UnionPay growing 408 basis points (bps) to 38.44%, Mastercard growing 109 bps to 10.23%, domestic GP cards growing 5 bps to 6.61%, and JCB growing 4 bps to 0.62%.