During the second three months of this year, Visa Inc. continued to outperform MasterCard Worldwide in U.S. debit and credit card purchase volume, though true comparisons of their debit card programs are difficult because of the differences in how they report their data.
For the fiscal third quarter ended June 30, total U.S. Visa and Interlink debit transactions totaled 7.2 billion, up 20% from 6 billion during the same period last year. Purchase volume on MasterCard-branded debit cards, which includes activity from networks not associated with MasterCard whose brands also appear on the plastic, fell 0.5% during the company’s second quarter, to 2.11 billion from 2.12 billion.
Visa’s U.S. credit card purchase volume rose 3%, to 2.35 billion from 2.28 billion a year earlier, while MasterCard’s U.S. credit card purchase volume dropped 1.3%, to 1.48 billion from 1.5 billion.
During a conference call with analysts to address its fiscal third-quarter performance, Visa noted that part of the reason for the increases in its debit performance stemmed from the conversion of Washington Mutual Inc.’s debit MasterCard portfolio to Visa-branded JPMorgan Chase & Co. debit cards (
Despite the negative effects the conversion had on MasterCard’s U.S. debit portfolio, MasterCard executives continue to see prepaid cards as a “huge” opportunity for the company (
