Visa Expects Debit to Hit 15 Percent of Consumer Payments by 2007

In 1996, debit represented 2 percent of consumer payments in the U.S. Now, it's at 9 percent. "By 2007, we estimate that debit is going to grow to 15 percent of consumer payments in this country," says A.N. (Tony) McEwen, executive vice president, Visa U.S.A (San Francisco, Calif.). "That's a tremendous change in consumer behavior."

The latest figures available from Visa indicate that debit cards were used for $480 billion in sales in 2002. Of that, $318 billion was "offline" (signature-based) debit, with the remaining $162 billion as "online" (PIN-based) debit.

Visa has 141 million check cards in the marketplace, of which 60.9 percent are active (used at least once per month). On average, an active cardholder makes 11.4 transactions per month, with an average ticket of $37.99. "The people who have the cards and use the cards are using them very frequently," says McEwen.

Since 1999, all of the major transaction types have been growing at double-digit compounded annual growth rates:

Source: Visa