As the U.S. market struggled, emerging markets are becomingincreasingly important to international card networks’ growth. In2009, Visa saw its total payment volume in Latin America and theCaribbean market grew by 20.3% to a total of US$253 billion for theyear ending on September 30. As a comparison, the U.S. market grewby 8% to US$1,750 for the year ending on June 30, 2010. Theimpressive growth in the LAC market is mainly due to the especiallystrong growth in Brazilian market which grew by 23%. Product wise,”the performance of products aimed at affluent consumers helped toboost regional results, with volume for Visa Gold, Visa Signature,Visa Platinum and Visa Infinite cards increasing considerably inall countries in the region”, according to a press release fromVisa.
LAC is not the only market that recorded strong growth for Visa.As a matter of fact, outside of U.S., Visa saw its payment volumegrew by 21% to US$1,285 billion for the year ending June 30, 2010.If the trend continues at this speed, within three years, more thanhalf of Visa’s global payment volume will be coming from marketsoutside of the U.S. And by 2020, U.S. market might represent just30% of Visa’s global payment business.
No wonder Visa is going at full speed after the global market.MasterCard is certainly no different.