Visa 2015 Annual Report Download - page 23

Concentration of Business and Financial Information About Geographic Areas
For more information on the concentration of our operating revenues and other financial
information, see Item 8—Financial Statements and Supplementary Data—Note 13—Enterprise-wide
Disclosures and Concentration of Business included elsewhere in this report.
Competition
We compete in the global payment marketplace against all forms of payment. These include:
• paper-based payments, principally cash and checks;
• card-based payments, including credit, charge, debit, ATM, prepaid and private-label
products;
• eCommerce, mobile wallets and mobile payments; and
• other electronic payments, including wire transfers, electronic benefits transfers, automated
clearing house (“ACH”) and electronic data interchange.
Based on payments volume, total volume and number of transactions, Visa is the largest retail
electronic payments network used throughout the world. The following chart compares our network
with those of our major competitors for calendar year 2014:
Company(1)
Payments
Volume
Total
Volume
Total
Transactions Cards
(billions) (billions) (billions) (millions)
Visa Inc.(2) ........................ $ 4,761 $ 7,360 98.4 2,402
MasterCard(3) ..................... $ 3,281 $ 4,499 60.1 1,437
American Express(3) ................ $ 1,011 $ 1,023 6.7 112
JCB(3) ............................ $ 195 $ 202 2.4 88
Discover/Diners Club(3) .............. $ 153 $ 164 2.4 57
(1) UnionPay, which operates primarily within the Chinese domestic market, is not included in this table because
Visa currently does not compete in that market under local law. Although we are uncertain how UnionPay
reports certain volumes, reportedly its numbers could approach or exceed some of those listed in this chart.
(2) The data presented are provided by our financial institution clients. Previously submitted information may be
updated and all data are subject to review by Visa. Visa Europe data are not included.
(3) MasterCard, American Express, JCB, and Discover/Diners Club data sourced from The Nilson Report issue
1060 (March 2015). Includes all consumer and commercial credit, debit and prepaid cards. Some figures are
estimates and currency figures are in U.S. dollars. MasterCard excludes Maestro and Cirrus figures. American
Express includes figures for third-party issuers. Discover figures consist of U.S. data only and include third-
party issuers. JCB figures include third-party issuers and other payment-related products. Certain general
purpose payments network competitors are more concentrated in specific geographic regions, such as JCB in
Japan and Discover in the U.S. Our competitors also have leading positions in certain countries. For example,
UnionPay remains the sole processor of domestic transactions and operates the sole domestic acceptance
mark in China.
In the global debit network market segment, our Interlink and Visa Electron brands compete with
Maestro, owned by MasterCard, and various regional and country-specific debit network brands,
including STAR, NYCE and PULSE in the U.S., EFTPOS in Australia, NETS in Singapore and Interac
in Canada. In addition to our PLUS brand, the primary cash access card brands are Cirrus, owned by
MasterCard, and many of the debit network brands referenced above. In many countries, local debit
brands provide the primary network, and our brands are used primarily to enable cross-border
transactions, which typically constitute a small portion of our overall transaction volume.
The global payments industry continues to undergo dynamic change. We may face increasing
competition from emerging players in the payment space, many of which are non-financial institution
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