QSR, Internet Show Strong Gains in Pre-Holiday Visa Card Activity

Quick-service outlets and e-commerce, both emerging channels for electronic transactions, grew at double-digit rates in activity on Visa USA credit and debit cards in the week ending Nov. 6, according to a report the card association released today. In the run-up to the critical holiday spending season, fast-food transactions jumped 74.1% for Visa, to 38.4 million, while volume on the Web increased 19.3% to 27.2 million. The average Visa ticket at a quick-service outlet during the week came to $10.62, by far the lowest average payment for cards in any category measured by Visa. At $2.3 billion, Internet volume is the second-largest merchant segment in the report, exceeded only by T&E ($4.8 billion). Other big gainers for the card network were travel-and-entertainment (up 40.5% o 105.9 million transactions) and home-and-garden centers (an 11.3% increase to 13.2 million transactions). Mail-and-phone-order volume, however, sank fully 19.2%, to 12.8 million payments. Card volume overall for Visa hit $22.3 billion on 397.7 million transactions in the week, representing increases of 14.7% and 14.3% respectively over the year-ago period. Traffic on consumer debit cards secured by signatures grew almost 20%, to 240.8 million transactions, far outdistancing the growth rate in consumer credit card volume, which rose 4.3% to 134.3 million payments. Because of an average ticket more than double that of debit, credit sales reached $10.6 billion, about $2 billion more than the dollars on debit cards. The spending results for the week indicate merchants can expect “a moderate to strong holiday season,” Visa's report says. Visa says it will release new transaction data each week between now and Jan. 2 in what it calls SpendTrak Reports measuring payment volume on its cards just before, during, and after the holiday season.