News

Asia-Pacific takes over No. 1 spot as largest EFTPOS region

November 20, 2014

New research from London-based strategic research and consulting firm RBR shows that the installed base of EFTPOS terminals in the Asia-Pacific region expanded by 30 percent in 2013, putting the region in first place ahead of North America, which grew by just 2 percent.

According to "Global Payment Cards Data and Forecasts 2013-2019," rapid growth in Asia-Pacific is attributable mainly to the increase in the Chinese terminal base, which expanded by 49 percent during the year.

The RBR report estimates a total of 61 million EFTPOS terminals installed at 40 million merchant outlets around the world, at the end of 2013, representing a 12 percent increase over 2012.

Asia-Pacific has lowest terminal density and card use 

Despite having the largest terminal base, Asia-Pacific continues to lag behind in terms of terminal density, with 7,000 terminals per million adults compared with a global average of 14,000.

North America and western Europe still boast the highest densities at 60,000 and 29,000 respectively. They are also the regions with the highest per-card use, both with around 50 purchases per card per year, compared with a global average of 20.

Asia-Pacific represents 36 percent of card-accepting outlets worldwide, but only a 21 percent share of volume of card payments because in many Asia-Pacific countries, cards are less frequently used for low-value purchases.

By contrast, North America and western Europe currently account for a combined 45 percent of outlets, which is lower than their 63 percent share of volume, attributable to both widespread acceptance and consumers willingness to use cards for everyday purchases.

RBR forecasts that Asia-Pacific will host half of all card-accepting outlets by 2019.

UnionPay, Discover, JCB are closing the gap with Visa and MasterCard

Visa and MasterCard are on a par in terms of global merchant acceptance, each being accepted at 33 million merchant outlets worldwide, or 83 percent of 40 million card-accepting outlets.

However, UnionPay, JCB and Discover all saw strong growth (between 18 percent and 21 percent) in acceptance in 2013.

This is primarily a result of the continued rapid expansion of the Chinese acceptance network and its agreements with JCB and Discover that enable universal acceptance in the country.

By comparison, Visa and MasterCard acceptance outlets rose by a modest 9 percent.

Moreover, UnionPay acceptance is rising in other regions following deals with major acquirers. The scheme is now accepted at 57 percent of merchant outlets worldwide compared with 47 percent in 2010, and acceptance is likely to increase further in the coming years, the RBR report said.