MasterCard gains on Visa in fight for market share
Hong Kong's consumers are the winners as credit-card companies offer discounts in their fight to increase their share of the market.
MasterCard has the upper hand on its larger rival Visa with new cards issued and customer-spending rising at a faster pace.
MasterCard has seen card-spending surge 35 per cent year-on-year in the first six months of this year after rising 40 per cent to US$4.46 billion last year, according to vice-president and Hong Kong country manager, Danny Cheung.
Cards in circulation have show similar growth with one million new cards issued last year bringing the number to 3.55 million.
In the first six months of this year, numbers were up a further 450,000.
Visa said sales volumes in the SAR were up 18 per cent on the 12 months to the end of June to US$14.8 billion, while the number of Visa cards in circulation was up 13 per cent to 6.5 million.
Graphic: card03gbz
