Buyers embraced the convenience and security of electronic payments instead of cash: spending on Visas suite of debit products accounted for over 50 percent of transactions, and e-commerce spending exceeded the companys projections. Overall global holiday spending processed by Visa?during the companys standardized 45-day peak processing period of 17 November through 31 December?increased 22 percent to US$257 billion, compared to US$213 billion over the same period in 2003. In all, Visa settled a total of 3.8 billion transactions during the holiday season, up 18 percent from the 3.2 billion transactions settled in 2003. Most impressively, spending on Visa debit and prepaid products, which access funds on deposit instead of a credit line, grew 33 percent to US$101.2 billion, compared to US$76.0 billion the previous year. Buyers made well over half of their holiday season transactions 54 percent using Visa debit, compared to 43 percent of transactions in 2001. Spending on Visa credit products grew as well, from US$136.8 billion in 2003 to US$155.7 billion in 2004, a 14 percent increase. All data are based on transactions processed through VisaNet, Visas global transaction processing network, and include both consumer and business transactions. Driven in large part by holiday shopping, consumer e-commerce spending over Visa surged at year-end and beat the companys own projections, totaling an estimated $155.4 billion in spending for calendar 2004, an increase of $59.1 billion or 61 percent over 2003. Other holiday season highlights include: - Visa usage averaged 84.6 million transactions and US$5.7 billion per day, based on transactions cleared and settled - Peak authorization rates increased 8.3 percent to 5,546 messages per second with 100 percent reliability over Visas global network - 23 December was a banner day for VisaNet, Visas global transaction processing network, when the system completed 147 million authorizations and cleared and settled US$7.7 billion and 107 million transactions from the previous day - On Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, Visa spending grew by an astounding US$1 billion over 2003, from US$3.8 billion to nearly US$4.8 billion For the transactions submitted by merchants in any given day, Visa provides settlement early in the morning the next day for the issuing and acquiring financial institutions (although in some locations such as Canada, merchants post weekend transactions the following Monday for settlement Tuesday). Based on these settlement volumes, the greatest day of spending around the world came with transactions made on 22 December and settled on 23 December, totaling at US$7.7 billion in a single day. That day was also the largest in the Visa Europe region, at US$2.0 billion. In contrast, Canadian merchants submitted more transactions on 21 December than any other day (with US$445 million settled on 22 December). The top spending day in Asia Pacific (US$803 million), Latin America/Caribbean (US$157 million) and Central/Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa (US$70 million) was 20 December, based on the volume settled on 21 December. However, 19 December was the biggest day for the United States (with US$5.0 billion in transactions settled on 20 December).
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