Some Interesting European Credit Card Data

Sep 08 2005 : In western Europe, 721 million payment cards are in issue, an increase of 80 million (12.5 per cent) since 2002, according to Retail Banking Research’s “Payment Cards Western Europe 2006” study. Just six countries account for 80 per cent of cards in the region and the UK is the largest market with 166 million cards, Germany second with 123 million, France third with 86.1 million and Turkey fourth with 66.8 million. In 2004, 23.3 billion card payments were made in western Europe at a value of EUR 1,392 billion with overall card use growing faster than card numbers.

Credit cards comprise one-third of the western European cards market, and prevail over debit cards in the UK, France, Greece and Ireland. Debit cards account for 51 per cent of all payment cards in the region, versus credit at 33 per cent and charge, at 16.3 per cent. POS terminal installations in the region rose 23 per cent to 7.1 million in the two years to end-2004. Spain, Italy, the UK, Turkey, France and Germany account for 80 per cent of installed POS terminals but in terms of terminal density per million adults, Spain, Sweden and Norway lead the region.

Banks issue four out of five payment cards in western Europe with private label cards taking a 17.1 per cent market share and T&E organizations, 1.6 per cent. About 568 million (79 per cent) of the region’s 721 million payment cards are internationally branded, with 98 per cent carrying a MasterCard or Visa brand. On a number-of-cards basis, Maestro has 39.9 per cent of western Europe’s international cards market, with Visa next at 28.6 per cent, MasterCard at 17.3 per cent, Visa Electron at 12.2 per cent, Amex at 1.5 per cent and Diners Club at 0.4 per cent.

http://www.epaynews.com/index.cgi?su...2215212&block=

I really would have thought that Debit Cards made up a lot more than 51% of payments in the EU still thats not a bad figure to take in to consideration when targeting international, specifically, European surfers hitting our sites :)

Regards,

Lee