ISSUE #824 DECEMBER 2004 FOR 34 YEARS, THE LEADING PUBLICATION COVERING CONSUMER PAYMENT SYSTEMS WORLDWIDE TOP BANK CARD ISSUERS WORLDWIDE – 2003 The top 100 issuers of Visa and MasterCard credit, debit, and prepaid cards worldwide, based on total volume of purchases of goods and services and cash advances/with- drawals, are shown in the table on page 10. The figures are for calendar year 2003 as reported to Visa and MasterCard. Tables on pages 8 and 9 list the 50 largest countries based on volume in U.S. dollars of the following: purchases and cash generated by all cards issued within each country, vol- ume of purchases and cash in U.S. dollars on a per card basis for each brand in each country, the … (turn to page 6) AMEX PREPAID CARDS OUTSIDE THE U.S. The new name for the TravelFunds card product Amex launched a year ago is Travelers Cheque Card. The cards combine the BANK CARDS security features of paper travelers cheques and add the WORLDWIDE benefit of ATM access. They are not linked … (turn to page 3) TOTAL PURCHASE VOLUME VOLUME CHECK CASHING KIOSK The CashWorks subsidiary $4.312 $2.783 of GE Consumer Finance has been providing check cashing 1 trillion trillion services for 2 ⁄2 years using special software in POS termi- nals at 3,000 U.S. locations. Now the company plans to United States deploy an ATM-like, self-service kiosk to … (turn to page 3) TOTAL VOL. PURCHASE VOL. 40.4% 47.9% PURPLE CREDIT CARD IN THE U.K. Coutts & Co., a Europe private bank in the U.K. owned by the Royal Bank of TOTAL VOL. PURCHASE VOL. Scotland, has started the select marketing of a 30-day credit 30.3% 30.4% card to its upscale clients. Those clients must have at least £500,000 ($964,000) in liquid assets or … (turn to page 8) Asia/Pacific TOTAL VOL. PURCHASE VOL. COMPUCREDIT SUBPRIME CARDS The sixteenth 18.5% 13.7% largest bank credit card issuer in the United States, a spe- Latin America cialist in the subprime customer market, managed 2.4 mil- TOTAL VOL. PURCHASE VOL. lion accounts on file as of September 30 of this year. 5.4% 2.5% CompuCredit, a specialty finance company … (turn to page 8) Canada PAYMENT CARD MANUFACTURING – 2003 TOTAL VOL. PURCHASE VOL. Companies that manufacture high-security cards, as well as 3.0% 4.1% nonsecure cards used to initiate purchases of goods and Middle East/Africa services, shipped 4.38 billion units in 2003 — up 11.8% from TOTAL VOL. PURCHASE VOL. 3.92 billion in the prior year. … (turn to page 4) 2.4% 1.5% INSIDE: Fast Facts–2 M.POS Mobile Terminal–2 © HSN Consultants Inc. 2004 THE NILSON REPORT Reproducing or allowing reproduction or dissemination of any portion of this newsletter in any manner for any purpose is a copyright violation subject to substantial fines. Yearly Subscription: 23 issues—$995 Worldwide. ISSN 1087-8718 THE NILSON REPORT: 1110 Eugenia Place, Suite 100, Carpinteria, CA 93013 USA • PHONE (805) 684-8800 • FAX (805) 684-8825 • [email protected] FAST FACTS FAST FACTS FAST FACTS FAST FACTS FAST FACTS FAST FACTS FAST FA EXPERIAN’S new DecisionOne Web-based credit-decision HYPERCOM’S HBNet network for dial and IP terminals and account-management software for medium to large supports all card payment protocols and formats businesses was developed with LiveCapital, specialists in communication at up to v.92 speeds. SiVault Systems, credit-management software. Mark Zablan is Pres. Business which sells storage and retrieval systems for signed docu- Information Solutions at Experian, (714) 830-5578, ments and biometric signature-based authentication, will [email protected]. Mike Grossman is CEO at resell HBNet to its clients. Emilian Elefteratos is CEO at LiveCapital, (650) 350-3601, [email protected]. SiVault, (408) 321-5100, [email protected]. Sharon Cline is GM at HBNet, (602) 504-5848, [email protected]. GLOBAL PAYMENTS, a top provider of electronic transaction processing services in the U.S., Canada, and MERCANTEC, with 70,000 Web site host and online store- Eastern Europe, has renewed its $175-million (Canadian) front installations for small and medium-sized businesses, revolving credit facility agreement ($146 million U.S.). Jeff has been certified by Authorize.Net’s shopping cart pro- Baker is SVP Strategic Planning & Treasury, (770) 829- gram and now links directly to that company’s payment 8225, [email protected]. gateway to handle card transactions. Bill Tait is CEO at Mercantec, (630) 305-3200 x2116, [email protected]. INFICORP, a subsidiary of First Nat’l of Omaha, will acquire Roy Banks is Pres. at Authorize.Net, (801) 492-6521, Cornerstone Credit Union’s $2.3-million credit card [email protected]. portfolio. Timothy Kolk of Brookwood Capital was the broker, (603) 924-7215, [email protected]. Keith SHOPPER’S CHARGE ACCOUNTS, a division of Hudson Floen is Managing Director at InfiCorp, (404) 965-6040, United Bank, has acquired 49,000 private label card [email protected]. accounts from Marvin’s Building Materials and Home Center. R.K. Hammer was the broker. Hammer has brokered POINTS INTERNATIONAL has signed an agreement with over 800,000 card accounts this year. Robert Hammer is Delta Air Lines SkyMiles, to let its members transfer miles at CEO at RK Hammer, (805) 499-8548, [email protected]. delta.com/transfermiles. Rob MacLean is CEO at Points Ed Fechner is SVP at SCA, (201) 818-4000 x3026, Int'l, (416) 596-6390, [email protected]. Christine [email protected]. Pierce is Director of Partnership Marketing at Delta, (404) 715-9401, [email protected]. MONERIS SOLUTIONS, a top acquirer of payment card transactions, has partnered with SurePayroll, to offer that WHOLESALE PAYMENT SOLUTIONS is the new name for company’s online payroll processing service. Michael Alter is Wholesale Processing Consultants. WPS is an ISO based in Pres. at SurePayroll, (847) 676-8420 x7229, Riverside, California. Adam Pflaumer is President, [email protected]. Patrick Albright is SVP at (951) 781-0853, [email protected]. Moneris, (847) 520-6424, [email protected]. FAST FACTS FAST FACTS FAST FACTS FAST FACTS FAST FACTS FAST FACTS FAST M.POS MOBILE TERMINAL Hong Kong-based M.POS provides mobile-commerce services and terminals to customers in banking, telecommunications, and other industries. Its flagship product, the M.POS2002 point-of-sale terminal shown, here is a high-security, wire- less device with a matching cradle capable of providing sync/async landline communications. The device comes with two batteries. One stays in the cradle and continues to charge while the other is in use in the handset. The M.POS2002 communicates using TCP/IP protocol via public wireless networks including GSM, GPRS, or CDMA. EMV Level 1 & 2 certification has been awarded. Optional nonpayment applications include the sale of prepaid vouchers (which can be stored in a tamperproof space in the device), processing of loyalty transactions, inventory control, Web browsing, text messaging (sending, receiving, and printing out text messages), and the ability to make voice calls. M.POS shipped 10,000 terminals this year, up 27% over calendar year 2003. Terminals are distributed directly by M.POS in Hong Kong and on the mainland of China. The company sells through distributors in all other markets. Alice Cheng is Marketing Manager at M.POS International Limited in Hong Kong, (852) 2116-6125, [email protected]. ᔢ THE NILSON REPORT NUMBER 824 • DECEMBER 2004 - 2 - Amex (from page 1) … to a bank account. Their advantage over credit cards is that consumers load them with a specific amount budgeted for a particular trip. The rebrand- ed Travelers Cheque Card was recently launched in Germany. According to the Deustche Bundesbank, travelers from that country spend over $55 billion annually and 55% of that amount is in cash. The reloadable cheque cards can carry up to 2,500 euros ($3,250). Reloads can be made by phone or Internet (www.americanexpress.de/tcc). Funds can be denominated in euros, U.S. dollars, or British pounds. Currently, cheque cards are available from all large travel agency chains in Germany, as well as from Lufthansa, Europe’s third largest airline. Travelers Cheque Cards also entitle cardholders to American Express’s 24-hour customer service which helps replace lost or stolen pass- ports or identity cards, trace lost luggage, and cancel lost or stolen debit or credit cards, even those not issued by American Express. Stefan Happ is VP Europe, Travelers Cheques and Prepaid Services at American Express in London, 44 (207) 824-6151, [email protected]. American Express recently launched its first prepaid gift card outside the U.S. Amex chose the city of Fukuoka on Japan’s southern island of Kyushu to test the card. The gifts market in Japan is estimated at $63 billion annually and the average size of a gift is said to be $85. The new American Express Gift Card is accepted for payment at retailers and restaurants that accept American Express cards in Japan. YC Koh is VP & General Manager, Japan, Asia Pacific, Australia at American Express in Singapore, (65) 6880-1688, [email protected]. Prior issues: 823, 820 ᔢ Kiosk (from page 1) … provide check cashing and other financial services to unbanked and underbanked consumers. The CashWorks kiosk for high-traffic retail locations will not dispense cash — although it can be configured to accept cash from consumers making payments of utility bills and other recurring pay- ments. Instead, the kiosk will authorize payroll, government, and other checks, and then immediately place the monetary value of the check onto a prepaid debit card account held at GE Capital Consumer Card Co., a federal savings bank in Ohio.