Visa

Merchants Benefits Fact Sheet

Visa Acceptance for Growth, Efficiency, Opportunity

At Visa, a top priority is creating more value for our merchant partners. By focusing on merchants’ most pressing business needs, Visa continues to develop innovative solutions that help merchants drive business growth, capture new opportunities and increase efficiencies.

For the past two decades, merchants have been a critical player in the continued migration from paper money to digital currency – as more and more merchants accept and use Visa as a tool to run their businesses. Visa products extend the benefits of digital currency by delivering startup funding to purchasing services to financial incentives to payroll to new revenue streams.

Global Acceptance and the Secular Shift to Electronic Payments

Around the world, there is a secular shift away from cash and checks to electronic payments. The convenience, reliability and security offered by Visa is a key contributor to this shift in the way people pay – and in the benefits that merchants enjoy in accepting Visa. In fact, today Visa is accepted at more than 28 million merchant outlets ranging from the largest retailers in the world to places such as taxis, transit fares and vending machines that have traditionally been reliant on cash.¹ Shifting customers’ paper-based spending to card-based transactions is a tremendous opportunity. Research has concluded that cash is the most expensive form of payment to society.²

• Preferred Payment

  Visa helps merchants accommodate consumers’ payment preferences and enhances satisfaction. In a survey sponsored by Visa, 40 percent of consumers avoid using cash whenever possible as a result of the benefits of digital currency.³

• Satisfaction and Retention

  Acceptance of payment cards can lead to stronger customer satisfaction and retention. In fact, more than one in three consumers (and half of 18- to 24-year-olds) consider whether a business accepts payment cards when deciding where to purchase goods and services, and they are likely to avoid a business where they can’t pay electronically.⁴

• Speed and Efficiency

  Payment card transactions help increase speed and efficiency at checkout, particularly in traditionally cash-heavy segments, such as taxis and newsstands.

• Topline Growth

  Acceptance can also support topline revenue growth, not only by strengthening customer retention but also via increased sales. Customers who pay with Visa cards are not limited by the money in their wallets, so they can buy what they want, when and where they find it. And the average ticket for Visa purchases is consistently higher than for cash transactions.

• Guaranteed Payment

  Merchants are assured of guaranteed payment when a customer presents a Visa card, as long as they adhere to simple rules relating to authorization.

Helping Business Govern Its Spending

One of the most important and difficult issues facing any business is how to manage its spending. Visa products and value-added information services – from corporate spending cards to reporting – help companies increase efficiencies, streamline purchasing and gain greater visibility into their cash flow and expenditures. This is vitally important to small businesses, which often lack the sophisticated resources of larger firms for financial management.

 

¹For the four quarters ended March 31, 2009; merchant outlets and ATMs as reported by our client financial institutions and therefore may be subject to change; includes merchant outlets and ATMs in the Visa Europe territory.
²Review of Network Economics. “The Move Toward a Cashless Society: Calculating the Costs and Benefits”, Vol. 5 Issue 2, June 2006.
³Visa Inc. Way People Pay Survey, June 2008.
⁴Visa Inc. Way People Pay Survey, June 2008.