American Express has been the market leader in providing cards to small businesses, but VISA is moving up fast.

A 1999 survey by the PSI Global Commercial Services Research Program (CSRP) indicates that American Express has 22% of the small-business commercial card market, VISA has 20% and MasterCard has 13%.  In 1998, VISA had only 11% of the market, and MasterCard only 10%.

The CSRP study is based on telephone interviews with 900 companies with sales between $500,000 and $10 million.  A few of the results of the study were:

  --Forty-nine percent of all small businesses in this category are using some type of business credit card, up from 37% in 1998.

--In spite of the fact that the number of companies using business cards has steadily increased, total card billing has remained relatively unchanged.

--The average small business spends about $10,000   each year on a business card.

--The average small business revolves about $2,000 monthly.

--Twenty percent of small businesses are making purchases online.

PSI provides a great deal of information on what’s happening in business today on their Web site www.psi-global-nfo.com.

  VISA is aggressively promoting itself as the payment vehicle of choice on the Internet, so don’t be surprised if those market share percentages change.