In the face of the financial crisis and economic downturn, more people used Visa cards in Europe in 2008 than they did in 2007. The figures from Visa Europe shows that the points of sale payments for plastic cards increased by 10.3 per cent. In general, using credit card has been increased by 7.1 per cent, while debit cards were 10.9 per cent up on the year.
Visa’s Europe chief executive Peter Ayliffe said, “The use of Visa debit cards at point of sale is up by almost 11 percent in Europe… proving that we’re actively displacing cash and cheques at tills.” He also added “When consumers are managing their money, they have recognized that debit is the safer and more convenient alternative to cash.”
However, Visa Europe’s figures also showed that 7.1 per cent more debit cards were in use in 2008 than were in use the previous year. And for the credit card, the mark was 1.5 per cent rise.
After a long time a piece of news gives the smile over Americans because the relief is on the way for millions of U.S citizens who are very angry with their credit card companies. Recently, U.S. regulators which are led by the Federal Reserve, the U.S. Central Bank approved some new rules to ban what they call ‘unfair or deceptive’ practices by banks as well as credit card companies this week. The new rules are scheduled to take effect in July 2010. For several years, customers have complained banks have imposed unreasonable and high amount of fees or very often they have hiked their interest rates without any reason.
Most exciting event for a collage student is to own there credit card. A person owns his/her first credit card at collage. These lead a massive opportunity for the students in collage life because the credit card will help you through in shopping, allow you to shop through the internet or it can be useful in the need of emergency. However if you don’t have a credit card yet then it’s not a big problem, because there are lot of credit card companies in the campus area waiting for you.