NEW YORK – American Express has overtaken MasterCard to gain second place among credit card brands in the U.S. based on spending at merchants, according to The Nilson Report.
While purchase volume increased for all four card brands – Visa, AmEx, MasterCard, and Discover – AmEx credit cards had an increase of 13.4% to $540 billion dollars, compared to an increase 6.1% to $508 billion for MasterCard credit cards, Nilson found.
For the first time since 2007, combined American Express, Discover, MasterCard and Visa consumer and commercial credit, debit and prepaid cards generated a double-digit increase in spending at merchants. The combined cards generated $3.6 trillion in purchase volume in 2011, up 10.4% from 2010.
Credit card outstandings, the unpaid balances owned by all Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Discover general purpose credit card accounts, totaled $713 billion in 2011, up $1.99 billion or 0.3%. This was the first increase since 2008.
