All eyes are on transactions. With the end of the year just around the corner, the economy is still rolling along strong. Recent reports have shown that strong consumer spending has lifted payment cards at three of the nation’s biggest banks last month, causing healthy increases in the third-quarter payment card purchase volumes.
According to new reports, JPMorgan Chase & Co., posted $343.8 billion in merchant-processing volume. For the nation’s biggest bank-run merchant acquirer, this is a 14 percent increase from $301.6 billion in the third quarter. In fact, merchant volume for 2018’s first nine months is up 14 percent year-over-year to a massive $990.9 billion.
In addition, Chase shared that consumer credit cards grew 12 percent to $176 billion from the prior year’s quarter ($157.7 billion). Combined debit and credit card purchases also climbed considerably, up 12 percent to $259 billion from $231.1 billion.
JPMorgan Chase & Co. is not the only big bank to experience an increase in sales volume. Citigroup Inc., Chase’s rival, reported $134.9 billion in worldwide credit card purchase volume in the third quarter – an increase of 8 percent from $124.9 billion a year ago. In North America, Citi-branded general-purpose cards posted $87.3 billion in volume (up 9 percent from $80.4 billion in third quarter 2017).
San Francisco-based Wells Fargo & Co. has also seen its fair share of sales volume. The organization reported debit card point-of-sale purchase volume of $87.5 billion in the third quarter, up 9 percent from $80 billion a year earlier. Point-of-sale (POS) debit transactions rose 7 percent to 2.24 billion from 2.09 billion. In addition, Wells Fargo shared that general-purpose credit cards were $19.4 billion in third-quarter POS purchase volume – up 7 percent from $18.2 billion last year.
The Need for Chargeback Insurance Providers
As sales volume continues to climb, so does the need for chargeback insurance providers. Chargebacks have a serious impact on merchants and their businesses. Chargebacks quickly chip away at a businesses bottom line and can even make it difficult to secure merchant services, like payment processing. As we move into a New Year, more and more merchants will likely seek the protection chargeback insurance providers and their services have to offer.
Author Bio: Electronic payments expert Blair Thomas is the co-founder of high-risk payment processing company eMerchantBroker. He’s just as passionate about his business as he is with traveling and spending time with his dog Cooper.
