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With the economy still humming along in 2018’s fourth quarter, a nearly 17% increase in merchant-processing volume by JPMorgan Chase & Co. augurs strong volume growth by Visa Inc. and Mastercard Inc. when the bank card networks report financial results later this month.
New York City-based JPMorgan Chase operates the nation’s largest bank-owned merchant-acquiring business. On Tuesday, the company said it processed $375.2 billion in merchant volume in the quarter ending Dec. 31, up 16.7% from $321.4 billion a year earlier. For all of 2018, JPMorgan Chase’s merchant volume rose 15% to $1.37 trillion from $1.19 trillion in 2017.
The nation’s biggest bank by assets also reported that its fourth-quarter credit and debit card sales volume rose 10% year-over-year to $270.5 billion. Full-year credit and debit volume totaled $1.02 trillion, an 11% increase from 2017’s $916.9 billion.
Also Tuesday, Wells Fargo & Co., a top debit card issuer, reported fourth-quarter point-of-sale debit purchase volume of $89.8 billion, up 8% year-over-year on a 6% increase in transactions. Wells’s general-purpose consumer credit cards saw POS purchase volume rise 5% to $20.2 billion.
Visa is scheduled to issue its next quarterly financials on Jan. 30 and Mastercard on Jan. 31.
