• The UK government's experience

The UK government's experience

The UK government began its Visa Government Procurement Card (GPC Visa) programme in 1997. Since then, more than 580 public sector organisations have saved over €420 million by using Visa payment systems.

In 2003, the Visa consortium was awarded a second contract exclusively after a competitive tender that has extended the system to all Public Sector organisations in the UK.

Award winning

The programme was recognised as the ‘Best Commercial/Travel Card Product’ at the 2005 European Cards and Payments Awards.

The judging panel said: “Visa’s dynamically expanding UK government purchasing card scheme covers six UK issuers and provides a vast, mature, independent and independently audited scheme which, as a total package provides probably the most up to date and comprehensive programme of its kind.”

The UK Government Procurement Card benchmarking website

Government Procurement Card annual report 2005 (PDF format, 5.1MB)

Government Procurement Card: case studies, 2000 (PDF format, 246 KB)