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JPMorgan Chase & Co., the largest U.S. bank by assets and the biggest bank that runs its own merchant-acquiring operation, reported Friday that it processed $1.19 trillion in payment volume from merchants last year, up 12% from $1.06 trillion in 2016.
Chase’s merchant volume rose 13% in 2017’s fourth quarter to hit $321.4 billion versus $284.9 billion in the year-earlier quarter. Part of that lift no doubt came from strong holiday spending, as noted by processor First Data Corp. and the National Retail Federation.
Combined purchase volume on Chase’s credit and debit cards totaled $245.1 billion in the fourth quarter, up 11% from $220 billion a year earlier. Consumer credit card sales volume added up to $168 billion, an increase of 13% from $148.5 billion in 2016’s fourth quarter. For all of 2017, debit and credit card purchases came in at $916.9 billion, up 12% from 2016’s $821.6 billion.
Chase said it had 30.1 million mobile-banking customers at year’s end, a 13% increase from 26.5 million in 2016’s fourth quarter.
Meanwhile, San Francisco-based Wells Fargo & Co., one of the nation’s largest debit card issuers, reported Friday that it posted $83.1 billion in debit purchase volume in the fourth quarter, up 6% from $78.4 billion a year earlier. Point-of-sale debit transactions rose 4% to 2.12 billion.
Wells Fargo credit card holders racked up $19.1 billion in fourth-quarter POS purchases, a 6% increase from $18 billion in 2016’s last quarter. And fourth-quarter charge volume on Wells’ commercial cards rose 13% year-over-year. The bank also said it has 21.2 million active mobile-banking customers.
