Visa EU represents 6,000 banks and financial institutions from 26 European countries ? comprising all of the countries of the European Free Trade Area, plus Turkey, Israel, Cyprus and Malta.
Together, these banks have issued over 180 million Visa cards ? and continue to issue new Visa cards at the rate of over 20,000 cards each day.
These cards account for nearly ?600 billion in cardholder sales volume ? which continues to grow at around 20 per cent each year.
The region has some very distinct characteristics. For example, the majority of Visa cards are debit cards, as opposed to credit cards, and many European countries have already begun the process of migrating to the new generation of chip cards.
This migration to chip is a central focus for Visa EU.
Visa EU has set a deadline of 2005 for the creation of chip card acceptance infrastructure; it has worked to ensure that all European countries adopt the EMV (Europay, MasterCard, Visa) chip card specifications; it has set aside a chip migration fund to encourage early adoption; and it brokered a common, interoperable specification (CEPS) for the region?s electronic purse cards.
The Visa EU Region has also been active in developing e-commerce, m-commerce and tv-commerce solutions, which meet European needs, recognise existing European investments and accommodate emerging European payment habits.
For more information about the Visa EU region and the activities of Visa EU, please visit
www.visaeu.com