A fledgling million dollar business fifty years ago, the credit card business has now zoomed, big time, into the trillion dollar club. For the first time, Americans charged $2 trillion on their major credit cards in one year, and amassed more than $2 trillion in revolving and installment consumer credit, excluding home mortgages. Also, for the first time, the nation's largest credit card network, VISA, reported it topped $1 trillion in U.S. sales volume during 2003. Purchases and cash advances on general purpose payment cards, including VISA, MasterCard, American Express, and Discover, totaled $2.1 trillion in 2003, a 9.2% gain over 2002. However, the growth was down from the 11.4% increase for 2002/2001. The second quarter of last year was the most sluggish period as gross dollar volume on credit and debit cards only increased 7.3% over the prior year. The most active quarter was the third quarter when GDV topped $540 billion, a 10% gain over 3Q/02. For all of 2003, VISA processed 52.6% of the total volume; MasterCard produced 30.3%; American Express 12.5%; and, Discover 4.7%. During 2002, U.S. consumers and employees used credit and debit cards to make $1922.8 billion in transactions. In 2001, the figure was $1725.9 billion.
General Purpose Credit and Signature Debit Card Volume
Gross Dollar Volume Year-Year Change
1Q/03 $477.1 billion +9.7%
2Q/03 $515.9 billion +7.3%
3Q/03 $540.5 billion +10.0%
4Q/03 $566.9 billion + 9.9%
TOTAL $2100.4 billion +9.2%
Source: CardData (www.carddata.com)
A fledgling million dollar business fifty years ago, the credit card business has now zoomed, big time, into the trillion dollar club. For the first time, Americans charged $2 trillion on their major credit cards in one year, and amassed more than $2 trillion in revolving and installment consumer credit, excluding home mortgages. Also, for the first time, the nation's largest credit card network, VISA, reported it topped $1 trillion in U.S. sales volume during 2003. Purchases and cash advances on general purpose payment cards, including VISA, MasterCard, American Express, and Discover, totaled $2.1 trillion in 2003, a 9.2% gain over 2002. However, the growth was down from the 11.4% increase for 2002/2001. The second quarter of last year was the most sluggish period as gross dollar volume on credit and debit cards only increased 7.3% over the prior year. The most active quarter was the third quarter when GDV topped $540 billion, a 10% gain over 3Q/02. For all of 2003, VISA processed 52.6% of the total volume; MasterCard produced 30.3%; American Express 12.5%; and, Discover 4.7%. During 2002, U.S. consumers and employees used credit and debit cards to make $1922.8 billion in transactions. In 2001, the figure was $1725.9 billion.
