€2.6bn to be spent on Visa cards across Europe as
people prepare for final rush on busiest shopping
day
London, 22 December 2011 - Friday 23rd December
is set to be the busiest ever day for shopping across Europe,
according to a forecast by Visa Europe. The payments technology
company expects to process almost 50 million transactions, worth
more than €2.6 billion, throughout the day as people hunt for their
last minute Christmas purchases.
Throughout the day, shoppers are expected to use their Visa
cards to spend almost €2 million every minute, with more than 70%
of this spend set to take place on Visa debit cards. This record
spend equates to year-on-year growth of approximately 9%.
According to historical trend data from Visa Europe, the busiest
shopping day has always fallen on the 23rd December. However, Visa
Europe is predicting that the busiest ever shopping hour will
actually fall outside of the busiest shopping day. With Christmas
Eve taking place on a Saturday, Visa Europe predicts the biggest
volume of transactions will take place in the hour from 12:00 until
13:00 on Christmas Eve as shoppers take advantage of the last
work-free day before the festivities begin and they relax ahead of
Christmas Day.
Visa Europe’s processing centre, which has the ability to manage
over 2,500 transactions per second, will be well equipped to deal
with the expected 1,200 transactions taking place every second
during the busiest hour across Europe.
Dr Steve Perry, Commercial Director at Visa Europe,
comments:
"We’ve already seen strong growth in online sales and we expect
that the 23rd will be the busiest ever shopping day for the amount
of money spent on Visa cards, increasing by 9% compared against
last year."
"While the 23rd will be the busiest day in total, we are
predicting that the hour when the most number of transactions will
take place will fall on Christmas Eve. As the 24th is a Saturday,
we predict that more last minute shopping than usual will take
place with a surge in transactions expected from 12.00 until
13.00."
Visa bases its predictions on up to the minute spending data and
previous years’ Christmas spending trends. Over €1 in every €8
spent in Europe is on a Visa card, making this data one of the most
reliable indicators of trends in consumer spending.
About Visa Europe
In Europe, there are 430 million Visa debit, credit and
commercial cards. In the 12 months ending March 2011 those cards
were used to make purchases and cash withdrawals to the value of
€1.6 trillion. 12.5% of consumer spending at point of sale in
Europe is with a Visa card, and more than 70% of that is on Visa
debit cards.
Visa Europe is owned and operated by more than 4,000 European
member banks and was incorporated in July 2004. In October 2007,
Visa Europe became independent of the new global Visa Inc., with an
exclusive, irrevocable and perpetual licence in Europe. As a
dedicated European payment system it is able to respond quickly to
the specific market needs of European banks and their customers -
cardholders and retailers - and to meet the European Commission’s
objective to create a true internal market for payments.
Visa enjoys unsurpassed acceptance around the world. In
addition, Visa/PLUS is one of the world’s largest global ATM
networks, offering cash access in local currency in over 200
countries.
For more information, visit http://www.visaeurope.com/