Study: Credit card spending grows

Carpinteria, Calif. – America’s love affair with credit cards continues heating up. According to The Nilson Report, purchase volume at merchants for general purpose-type consumer and commercial credit, debit, and prepaid cards issued in the U.S. totaled $4.91 trillion in 2014, up 8.4% from 2013.



Credit cards increased their market share in purchase volume compared to debit and prepaid cards to 53.59% in 2014, up from 52.95% in 2013.



Credit cards carrying the Visa, MasterCard, American Express, and Discover brands generated a combined $2.63 trillion in 2014, up 9.7%. Debit and prepaid cards carrying those brands as well as the brands of EFT networks such as Accel, Interlink, Nyce, Pulse, and Star generated a combined $2.28 trillion, up 6.9%.



In the top 10, three issuers gained share, led by JPMorgan Chase. Its consumer and commercial credit, debit (including EFT network), and prepaid cards combined to generate $703.32 billion in purchase volume in 2014. Chase cards accounted for 14.32% of all spending at merchants, an increase of 0.2%. Wells Fargo’s share increased 0.18% to 7.41%, while Capital One’s share increased 0.03% to 4.13%.



The other seven issuers in the top 10 had market share declines. American Express slipped 0.02% to 13.43%; Bank of America was down 0.55% to 11.55%; Citi was down 0.15% to 5.02%; U.S. Bank was down less than 0.01% to 3.21%; Discover was down 0.07% to 2.35%; PNC Bank was down 0.03% to 1.64%; and USAA was down 0.02% to 1.63%.



American Express remained the largest issuer based on credit card purchase volume only. Bank of America continued as the largest issuer based on debit and prepaid card purchase volume only.