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1 year of business swipes; V/MC/AX/DISC data:

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Anonymous
Not applicable

1 year of business swipes; V/MC/AX/DISC data:

I run a casual restaurant and in looking through some of my year ending numbers I thought it would be fun to post the number of transactions I had for the entire 2016 year in terms of Visa, MC, Amex and Discover swipes and then express them as percentages.  I've always wondered how the percentages would actually turn out.  Naturally everyone knows shooting from the hip that Visa's see the most action overall, but without breaking it down I never really knew by what margin.  Anyway, the restaurant does a little over $4M in annual sales and in 2016 we had a total of 84,334 credit card transactions, of which their breakdown was the following:

 

Visa:  63,583 swipes, 75.4% of total transactions.

MC:  15,085 swipes, 17.9% of total transactions.

Amex:  3461 swipes, 4.1% of total transactions.

Disc:  2205 swipes, 2.6% of total transactions.

 

This seems like a healthy enough sample size to give meaningful numbers, so I thought I'd share them with the group just for informative purposes.

Message 1 of 41
40 REPLIES 40
UncleB
Credit Mentor

Re: 1 year of business swipes; V/MC/AX/DISC data:


@Anonymous wrote:

I run a casual restaurant and in looking through some of my year ending numbers I thought it would be fun to post the number of transactions I had for the entire 2016 year in terms of Visa, MC, Amex and Discover swipes and then express them as percentages.  I've always wondered how the percentages would actually turn out.  Naturally everyone knows shooting from the hip that Visa's see the most action overall, but without breaking it down I never really knew by what margin.  Anyway, the restaurant does a little over $4M in annual sales and in 2016 we had a total of 84,334 credit card transactions, of which their breakdown was the following:

 

Visa:  63,583 swipes, 75.4% of total transactions.

MC:  15,085 swipes, 17.9% of total transactions.

Amex:  3461 swipes, 4.1% of total transactions.

Disc:  2205 swipes, 2.6% of total transactions.

 

This seems like a healthy enough sample size to give meaningful numbers, so I thought I'd share them with the group just for informative purposes.


Wow... very insightful indeed!  Smiley Very Happy

 

I have always known that Visa was 'king' but I'm a bit surprised to see MasterCard so far behind... I wonder if so many banks offering their debit card exclusively as Visa makes a difference?  (I realize this is just one sample in a single geographical location, but it's interesting nonetheless...)

 

Thanks for sharing with us!  Smiley Happy

Message 2 of 41
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: 1 year of business swipes; V/MC/AX/DISC data:

Absolutely.  For the record, I'm in upstate NY.

Message 3 of 41
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: 1 year of business swipes; V/MC/AX/DISC data:

I've only banked at 4 places in my lifetime (Comerica, Bank of America, PNC and a Credit Union) and I've never noticed that they have all been Visa's. Do banks even do Mastercard debits?

 

The distance between Visa and Mastercard is pretty grand. Nice datapoints Smiley Happy

Message 4 of 41
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: 1 year of business swipes; V/MC/AX/DISC data:

I've always heard that Visa was something like 40%, MC ~25% and AmEx/Discover taking up the rest. 75% is definitely more than I expected.

Message 5 of 41
UncleB
Credit Mentor

Re: 1 year of business swipes; V/MC/AX/DISC data:


@Anonymous wrote:

I've only banked at 4 places in my lifetime (Comerica, Bank of America, PNC and a Credit Union) and I've never noticed that they have all been Visa's. Do banks even do Mastercard debits?

 

The distance between Visa and Mastercard is pretty grand. Nice datapoints Smiley Happy


+1

 

Until last summer my USAA debit card was MasterCard, but they have now changed over to Visa for debit and all MasterCard credit accounts have also converted to Visa (they offer cards on the Amex network as well; those weren't impacted).

 

Paypal, while not a 'bank' has a MasterCard debit product, but otherwise the few (usually smaller) banks that I previously knew of that used to issue their debit cards as MasterCard have all changed over to Visa.  Since there is a obviously a cost in migration I can speculate that Visa must have offered a significantly better deal.

Message 6 of 41
redpat
Senior Contributor

Re: 1 year of business swipes; V/MC/AX/DISC data:


@Anonymous wrote:

Absolutely.  For the record, I'm in upstate NY.


If it was New York City, Amex wouldn't be near the bottom.....Might be close to Visa, lol!

 

It's interesting how different segements of the country use card brands. 

Personal Cards: Amex Plat | Amex Delta Res | CSR | Citi AA Exec Business Cards: Ink+ | Amex BGR
Message 7 of 41
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: 1 year of business swipes; V/MC/AX/DISC data:

It's also interesting as a customer I find that I want to use different cards at different types of establishments and not just for bonus categories.

For example for some reason I want to use Amex at Dillards, but at In N Out burger I'm fine handing over Discover.
Message 8 of 41
grillandwinemaster
Valued Contributor

Re: 1 year of business swipes; V/MC/AX/DISC data:

Nice data points! 

 

For the record, I personally don't have any Visa credit cards. My credit union debit, however, IS a Visa card. 

 

I do have a Discover card, and NO Amex as of yet. 

 

Good work, BBS!


Current Scores 3/2016 Equifax 676 Transunion 697 Experian 648 Goal Scores: 720's accross the board. Gardening Goal: 3/2017
Message 9 of 41
redpat
Senior Contributor

Re: 1 year of business swipes; V/MC/AX/DISC data:


@Anonymous wrote:
It's also interesting as a customer I find that I want to use different cards at different types of establishments and not just for bonus categories.

For example for some reason I want to use Amex at Dillards, but at In N Out burger I'm fine handing over Discover.

So what you are telling us is that you don't want Amex to know that you are a closet In-N-Out burger eater........It's okay I use Amex at Micky D's and Capital Grille......At Nordstrom it's EDP or FU I'll take the extra 1/2 point.

Personal Cards: Amex Plat | Amex Delta Res | CSR | Citi AA Exec Business Cards: Ink+ | Amex BGR
Message 10 of 41
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