In the quarter that ended on Dec. 31, Visa experienced payment growth of almost 11%. For the future, the credit card brand sees an increase in contactless cards and volume on its Visa Direct real-time payments service.
The worldwide payment volume totaling $2.2 trillion that Visa saw was especially impressive considering the many financial troubles hitting the world during this period, including the longest ever U.S. federal employee shutdown, a weakening in cross-border payment growth, and the uncertainties surrounding Brexit. In the U.S., quarterly payment volume grew 10.6% to $980 billion from the year before.
What’s Next for Visa
As Visa moves ahead, it plans to grow by making contactless transactions a priority in the U.S. and overseas. By the end of the year, Visa expects 100 million of its cards to be contactless by the end of this year. Wells Fargo and Bank of America will follow in the same footsteps, issuing tap-to-pay cards throughout the year.
More About Visa Direct
The network’s real-time debit service, Visa Direct, also is helping the business grow. Visa continues to evolve and expand based on geographies and usage. It recently landed the largest merchant provider in Latin America as one of its partners, which will over the service for real-time disbursements.
What Visa’s Numbers Mean for the Payment Industry
Though some are anticipating the economy is gearing up for a fall, Visa numbers show that people continue to make a lot of purchases using credit and debit cards. Of course, all of that could change in an instant, but the small steady growth may be a good sign. With this in mind, if you are a smaller or startup business or new to accepting credit cards, you need to make sure your business is prepared to process high volumes of transactions.
How to Prepare for High Volumes
It is common for high-volume or high-risk businesses to be given merchant accounts with monthly credit card processing volume caps. This means merchants are only permitted to handle a specific number of credit card transactions per month. Once the cap is reached, a merchant can no longer take credit cards as payments during that month. Online businesses that depend on customers paying with credit cards, basically must stop taking sales until they reach the next month.
Over time, high-volume merchants can have their caps raised after a few months, if they keep chargebacks low and maintain a good processing history. Knowing what it requires gives you a chance to make sure you are following a good business model, handles returns and exchanges properly, and stocking away some money.
When You Need a High Volume Merchant Account
No one wants to turn away business, and you don’t have to with a high volume merchant account. Traditional lenders do not like to work with high risk merchants, such as ones that process high volumes of transactions each month. However, alternative lenders and high-risk specialists, such as eMerchantBroker.com (EMB), is up to the challenge. Apply online today using its quick and simple application process. It takes just a few minutes, and eligible merchants can get approved in just a few days. What are you waiting for? Apply now.