Visa card usage by Pinoys amounts to over $1 billion in Q4 of 2010

By Ted P. Torres (The Philippine Star)

MANILA, Philippines - Filipinos using Visa cards (both credit and debit) spent over $1 billion from October to December 2010, or a 32-percent growth over the same period in 2009.

A debit card is attached to the checking or savings account of cardholders while a credit card borrows money from an issuer bank. Half of the Visa cards issued in the Philippines are debit cards.

Of the total transactions, 54 percent were transactions made online, while 15 percent of total onlinetransactions were made overseas. The rest of the transaction were done through merchants, automated teller machines (ATMs), and other electronic devices.

Visa International (Asia Pacific) country manager for Philippines and Guam Ian Jamieson said in a briefing that the top four destinations of Filipinos that are also Visa card users are the United States (29 percent of total), Singapore (20 percent), Hong Kong (15 percent), and the United Kingdom (nine percent).

The other top destinations are Australia, Thailand, China, Canada, and Japan.

Foreign tourists coming to the Philippines using Visa cards come from the United States, South Korea, the United Kingdom, Australia, Japan, Canada, Norway, Singapore, United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Germany.

There are 5.79 million Visa cards in the Philippines while there are 81 million Visa cards in the Southeast Asian region.

There are six bank co-issuers in the Philippines, which include Banco de Oro Unibank Inc. (BDO), the Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP), Union Bank of the Philippines (UBP), Philippine Veterans Bank, Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corp. (HSBC), and Standard Chartered Bank of the Philippines.

Jamieson had earlier said Visa was in talks with three other commercial banks in the Philippines, of which an agreement with one of them would likely be signed in the next few months.

There are 1.8 billion Visa cards globally, which transact business with million of merchants that bring digital currency to consumers, businesses, banks and governments.

Likewise, 15,700 financial institutions worldwide issue Visa credit cards, debit cards and pre-paid cards.

Jamieson said that Visa’s global payment volume amounted to $3.3 trillion spent on cards, of which $2 trillion were on credit cards and $1.3 trillion in debit products.