India largest debit card market for Visa in Asia Pacific

India has become the largest market for Visa debit and pre-paid cards in Asia-Pacific with about 3.39 crore card-holders in 2006, accounting for about 34 per cent of the company's total customer-base of 10 crore in the region.

This is followed by Thailand and South Korea where the company has about 1.39 crore and 1.16 crore customers respectively, Visa Asia Pacific said in a release on Tuesday.

Even in terms of total transaction, India is among the top three destinations in the region, accounting for about 62 per cent of the total debit and prepaid card transactions.

"In India, debit or pre-paid programs have have shown good consumer take-up and at the end of last year, seven out of 10 Visa cards in India were debit or prepaid," Visa International Asia Pacific Country Manager South Asia Santanu Mukherjee said.

Total transactions through the Visa debit and prepaid cards in the region were at USD 156 billion in 2006, up 31 per cent from about USD 119.08 billion in 2005. The growth is almost double to that of the global transaction growth, which rose by 17 per cent, it said.

The Asia Pacific region accounted for about 60 per cent of Visa global total consumer volume and over 67 per cent of the number of Visa transactions, it added.