Consumers Ring Up Record Number Of Purchases Throughout Holiday Season; Spending Behavior Indicates Consumers More Comfortable With Financial Outlook in 2005.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Visa USA, the world's leading payment brand and largest payment system, announced today that spending (sales volume) on Visa branded payment cards during the entire 2004 holiday season (November 1 - January 2) totaled more than $218.7 billion, a 15.7 percent increase compared to the 2003 holiday season.

Visa's performance during the holidays is further evidence of the migration in spending away from paper-based payments to more secure, rewarding and convenient electronic forms of payments including debit and credit cards.

From November 1, 2004 thru January 2, 2005 consumer spending on Visa credit cards exceeded $110 billion, while debit spending grew to more than $90.6 billion, a 6.8 percent and 26.2 percent spike from this same time in 2003, respectively.

Sales volume during the 2004 peak holiday season, November 26 (Black Friday) through January 2, reached approximately $138.3 billion, a 19.6 percent increase over the same period in 2003.

"Visa tracked continued growth across a wide range of retail categories, from discount stores to more discretionary categories like travel and entertainment, which generally indicates that consumers are comfortable with their own financial situation. That's a positive sign for the overall economy as we move into 2005," said Wayne Best, senior vice president of Strategic and Economic Analysis for Visa USA. "E-commerce growth remained a bright spot this holiday, expanding by more than 33 percent since November 1, to more than $19.8 billion. This category experienced the biggest growth of all the retail segments during the holiday season - a sign that consumers are shopping online more frequently due to the convenience, security and rewards associated with using a Visa card for e-commerce purchases."

SpendTrak 2004 Holiday Season Highlights

--Most Popular Shopping Days This Season - The top five Visa shopping days (sales volume) during the 2004 holiday season were:

--Thursday, December 23rd - $4,837,127,232

--Wednesday, December 22nd - $4,680,510,555

--Tuesday, December 21st - $4,627,681,135

--Friday, December 17th - $4,565,247,143

--Saturday, December 18th - $4,499,845,665

This year, sales volume on Black Friday reached approximately $4.1 billion, which ranked as the 12th busiest shopping day of the holiday season, further proof that the day after Thanksgiving is not the most accurate or significant indicator of overall holiday shopping trends.

--Strong Growth Across Broad Cross - Section of Merchant Segment - Visa sales volume during the holiday season was largely driven by a 22 percent growth in Discount, Mass Retailer and Drug Store purchases, a 13 percent rise in Home and Garden purchases and an increase of nearly 12 percent of Travel and Entertainment purchases.

--VisaNet: 100 Percent Reliability - Prior to the holidays, Visa undertook steps to upgrade VisaNet, the largest and most advanced payment system in the world, to allow Visa to sustain approximately 6,200 transaction messages per second. The upgrade was part of Visa's broader effort to ensure Member financial institutions, cardholders and merchants that Visa could deliver secure and reliable payments even during the busiest shopping days of the year.

While December 23rd was the overall largest shopping day for Visa by sales volume, on the 24th of December VisaNet experienced a peak-processing rate of 5,546 transaction messages per second, sustained over a one-hour period - a 8.3 percent increase over last year's peak processing rate of 5,119 transaction messages per second, on December 24th, 2003.

During this holiday season, VisaNet experienced 100 percent availability and on time clearing and settlement, enabling merchants to better serve their customers in a timely and secure fashion. The end result is quicker throughput at the cash register, shorter checkout lines, and fewer abandoned sales.

Visa - Leading the Migration to Plastic Payments

"The strong and steady growth we witnessed this holiday season indicates that cardholders are not only more comfortable with their financial situation but are switching in larger numbers from paper forms of payment like cash and checks, to electronic payments such as credit, debit and prepaid cards. In the process, consumers have come to rely on Visa as 'Today's Money,' one of the most accepted, convenient and secure forms of payment worldwide," said Carl Pascarella, president and CEO for Visa USA.

There are more than 450 million Visa branded credit and debit cards in the United States. Those cards represent over 14 percent of Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE), indicating that consumers spend more than $14 out of every $100 using a Visa branded card. Only cash and checks have a greater share of PCE, making Visa products a strong indicator of consumer spending behavior.

About Visa

Visa is the world's leading payment brand and largest payment system, enabling banks to provide their consumer and business customers with a wide variety of payment alternatives. Nearly 21,000 financial institutions worldwide rely on Visa's processing system, VisaNet, to facilitate $2.5 trillion in annual transaction volume with virtually 100-percent reliability. Cardholders in more than 150 countries carry more than 1 billion Visa-branded cards, accepted at millions of locations worldwide. Within the United States, nearly 14,000 financial institutions issue 453 million Visa cards, accounting for more than $1.1 trillion in annual transaction volume. Visa offers a trusted, reliable and convenient way to access and mobilize financial resources - anytime, anywhere, anyway.

For more information, press only:
Paul Cohen
Visa USA Corporate Relations
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Monica Ma
Fleishman-Hillard, Inc.
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