Visa and Mastercard cross-border volumes drive growth in Q4 23 (2024)

FAQs

What is the biggest threat to Visa and Mastercard? ›

For Visa and Mastercard, there is probably no greater threat than the possibility of direct payment channels.

Mastercard has borrowed and invested more, fueling its sales revenue to grow at a five-year CAGR of 8.28%, surpassing Visa's 7.28%. These narratives, tucked away in the puzzle of statistics, are shaped by elements like cash flow, debt, liquidity and solvency management. All are important Treasury metrics.

Transaction Volume and Card Statistics

In 2022, nearly 40% of card transactions were Visa-branded, involving 242 billion purchase transactions worldwide. Visa also overshadows MasterCard in the number of cards in circulation, with 4.25 billion Visa cards compared to 3.30 billion MasterCard cards as of September 2023.

Visa (trading symbol V) commands a $497.5 billion market capitalization, while Mastercard (trading symbol MA) follows closely behind at $359.8 billion (market caps as of May 18, 2021).78 As neither company extends credit or issues cards through a banking division, both have a broad portfolio of co-branded offerings.

Visa is the more valuable company, with a market capitalization of about $500 billion compared to Mastercard's $360 billion.

If your bank switched a card from Visa to Mastercard, it was likely because they felt the features and benefits of Mastercard were better than those of Visa. For example, the issuer might take into consideration processing fees or network-level benefits like travel insurance or purchase protection.

Mastercard credit cards are more widely accepted internationally, while Visa cards tend to offer more benefits. But for most consumers, there is no practical difference between Visa and Mastercard. You should only worry about whether to get a Visa or Mastercard if you're torn between two offers.

Of the four main types of credit cards—Visa, Mastercard, American Express and Discover—Visa is by far the most common, making up 58.3% of cards in circulation.

Since Costco has an exclusive contract with Visa, shoppers can't use credit cards backed by the other three main networks — American Express, Mastercard and Discover — at Costco warehouses. However, you can pay with Mastercard for purchases made at Costco.com and the Costco app.

It's the merchant that makes the choice – and merchants, especially the really big merchants, have been bridling at the prices banks and networks charge them for decades. New competitors of course won't be able to compete with the big networks on quality/security, so they will compete primarily on price.

Did Apple pay overtake Mastercard? ›

Apple Pay – the tech giant's mobile payment service – has surpassed Mastercard in terms of annual transactions, processing more than $6 trillion worth of transaction volume. TradingPlatforms reports that only Visa now stands in the way of Apple Pay reaching the top spot globally.

Which is more secure? Both Visa and Mastercard offer zero fraud liability for all cards, which means that any user who is victim to fraud, theft, or breach of data will not be liable for the lost money. Both networks are generally considered to be secure, but use different methods for securing your data.

Visa. Visa credit cards are accepted in more than 200 countries and territories around the world, with more than 4.4 billion Visa cards currently in use worldwide.

Visa and Mastercard are the two largest payment processing networks in the world. They are responsible for handling the majority of the world's card payments.

One of the most significant risks associated with Credit Cards is the potential for accumulating debt. Credit Cards make it easy to overspend, and if you're not careful, you can quickly accumulate debt you may struggle to repay. This can lead to high-interest rates, late fees, and damage to your credit score.

Among the types of credit card, the one that carries the most risk are: Unsecured credit cards that have variable interest rate. Unsecured credit cards are a type of credit card that would not require applicants for collateral.

The settlement partially resolved a long-running antitrust case in which the two credit card network giants were alleged to have overcharged merchants by exacting excessive interchange fees. Those so-called swipe fees are what a merchant pays to accept credit card or debit card payments from consumers.