| Visa Reports Upswing In Card Spending For Asia Pacific |
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By Zakaria Abdul Wahab
SINGAPORE, Nov 4 (Bernama) -- Visa card spending across Asia Pacific reached US$981 billion for the 12 months ended June 30, 2009, up by 13 per cent over the previous 12 months, said Visa, the world's largest retail electronic payments network.
Payment volume, representing the aggregate dollar amount of purchases made with cards carrying the Visa, Visa Electron or Interlink brands, increased 13 per cent to $636 billion for the 12 months.
In a statement on Wednesday, Visa said leading this growth, though off a small base, was Visa Consumer Debit with a 33 per cent increase in payment volume.
Visa Consumer Credit payment volume, which accounted for 84 per cent of Asia Pacific's total payment volume rose by 12 per cent while Visa Commercial delivered an eight per cent increase.
Visa Inc's president for Asia Pacific, Central Europe, Middle East and Africa, Rupert Keeley, said the results might suggest very early signs of improving confidence in the region and that consumers and businesses might be beginning to spend more.
"While it is too early to call an economic recovery, we are certainly seeing more encouraging signs," he said, adding that overall, Visa cardholder spending in the region over the last 12 months grew and there was an upswing in the number of payment transactions in the April to June quarter.
Total volume in Asia Pacific for the three months ended June 30, 2009, increased US$30 billion to US$259 billion compared with three months ended March 31, 2009, calculated on a constant dollar basis.
Globally, total processed transactions, which represent transactions processed by VisaNet for the 12 months ended Sept 30, 2009, totalled US$39.9 billion, up by eight per cent over the previous year.
"The increase in the number of transactions processed further highlights that the continuing shift from cash and cheques to electronic forms of payments is being experienced across the world," Keeley said.
The total number of cards in force in Asia Pacific grew by 40 million on a year-over-year basis to 512 million cards.
Asia Pacific accounted for 30 per cent of the 1.7 billion Visa cards on issue globally.
-- BERNAMA
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