Visa card sales surge 48% to P183.3B in 2005

Visa International’s total card sales volume in the Philippines reached P183.3 billion in 2005, a 48.1-percent increase from the previous year, a top company official said.

Visa International Philippines country manager James Dixon said the total number of transactions likewise grew 34 percent to over 70.8 million.

Total retail sales volume amounted to P76.5 billion last year, a 27.1 percent increase from 2004 performance, he added.

Retail volume represents total purchase transactions made through Visa cards at merchant point-of-sale (POS) terminals and over the Internet.

While the majority of retail volume came from credit cardholders, Visa’s debit products also achieved significant growth with a 29.3-percent increase in retail sales volume.

Over P1.5 billion worth of sales were transacted using Visa Debit cards at merchant POS terminals in 2005. Total debit card sales volume grew to P104 billion, a 67.3 percent increase from 2004. The number of transactions made through Visa Debit products reached 35 million, an increase of 48.7 percent.

By the end of 2005, over 69,300 merchant outlets in the Philippines were accepting Visa cards. It has a card base of a little over six million.

Meanwhile, spending by international Visa cardholders visiting the Philippines hit P50 billion in 2005. It is estimated that approximately 35 percent of all tourist spending in the Philippines is made using a Visa card.

Globally, Visa connects over 1.3 billion cardholders, 24 million merchants and 21,000 financial institutions.

Dixon said Visa intends to expand further through the government and utilities sector, and the still untapped non-traditional sector such as the insurance industry.

"There are still more opportunities which we are looking at for expansion, with the help of our member banks in the Philippines," the Visa country head said.

That means expansion in member banks, other non-member banks like thrift or rural banks as secondary channels, non-banking institutions, and products for special markets or niche areas.