MasterCard and Visa now account for 86 per cent of all payment cards in Europe, as domestic and private label schemes continue their decline. RBR’s study Global Payment Cards Data and Forecasts to 2020 shows that €9 out of €10 spent using a payment card in Europe was made on a Visa or MasterCard-branded card – the highest share of any region. There were 1.5 billion payment cards in circulation in Europe at the end of 2014, used for payments worth €2.9 trillion. Although there is very little difference between Visa and MasterCard in terms of card numbers, with regard to payment value Visa is by far the larger scheme, and gained a percentage point of value share in 2014, while MasterCard lost a percentage point.

The other international schemes (American Express, Discover, JCB and UnionPay), account for less than two per cent of the regional card base, unchanged since 2013. A significant, though declining, proportion of cards are domestic bank card schemes or private label cards. The former are numerous in Russia and to a lesser extent Ukraine, which together account for more than 80 per cent of such cards in the region.

Meanwhile, card schemes will no longer be able to compete, to the extent they have in the past, on interchange fees, with the new EU caps of 0.2 per cent for debit cards and 0.3 per cent for pay-later cards. RBR believes that portfolio gains will instead be based on factors such as service levels and scheme fees, meaning that competition in the region will be as intense as ever.

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