Visa Reveals Americans Are Becoming Savers

Five trends of note from Visa Inc.'s FQ4’08 conference call: (V)

Credit cards lose their appeal, debit gains:

Credit volume growth average in the low single digits in the quarter, trending lower through September.

In sharp contrast to credit, debit volume growth was running at low to mid double digits throughout the quarter… Since the beginning of October, we have experienced additional moderation in volume growth in the US credit payment volume which was in the 1% to 2% range for most of the quarter has turned negative through the first three weeks of October.

While foreigners discover credit card debt:

Payment and cash transactions were up 14% to $14.1 billion in the quarter ending June 2008 versus the prior year. While the US grew approximately 10% during the period, the rest of the world grew at 20%… Internationally, credit and debit card growth was very strong, each growing 18% year-over-year.

Poorer borrowers are suffering the most:

We’re seeing a continued shift in both the debit and the credit to non-discretionary purchases.. It is the more credit-worthy credit cardholders that seem to be driving most of the purchases in the environment today. There’s a very low percentage of those transactions that are being driven by people that are credit-impaired.

Cool tech initiatives with Google

We are developing the suite of mobile applications for the Google Android platform… The services will allow Visa cardholders to receive notifications to their mobile devices about transaction activity on their accounts, obtain offers from a wide array of merchants, and use the built-in location-based technology developed by Google (GOOG) to quickly map nearby merchants... and locate ATMs that accept Visa.

No wonder Nokia’s gaining market share against Motorola (MOT):

We are working with Nokia (NOK)… to deliver Visa payments and related services for Nokia’s next generation Near-Field Communications handsets...  In conjunction with US Bancorp (USB), we have launched the Mobile Money Transfer Pilot Program to allow participating Visa cardholders to use their mobile phones and PDAs to securely send funds directly to another Visa cardholder.

Apparently, MOT is also on the GOOG bandwagon..