🇨🇳 China's UnionPay is Catching Up to Visa

What We’re Showing

This graphic shows the number of global transactions for five major card companies (Visa, Mastercard, UnionPay, American Express, and Discover) from 2014–2023. Data includes credit and debit card transactions and is sourced from Statista, current up to May, 2024.

Key Takeaways

• Credit card services tend to be viewed as a duopoly in the west, between Visa and Mastercard
• However, founded in 2002, China's UnionPay surpassed Mastercard by transaction volume in 2017, now firmly behind Visa in second place
• According to Retail Banking Research (see sources tab), it also surpassed both Visa and Mastercard by total payment value in 2015