European Payment Cards Yearbook

UK - Summary

	Price: £100.00
Market Overview
Payment Organizations	Payments Council (interbank payments and policy), LINK.

Domestic Card Brand	LINK (ATM brand), Solo cards are phased out.

Market Structure	The UK has long been Europe’s leading credit card market, but in recent years debit cards have made remarkable progress. In 2004, expenditure on cards exceeded expenditure on cash.

Major Issuers	Barclaycard, RBS/NatWest, HSBC, Lloyds Banking Group, Santander, Citi, MBNA, Capital One (credit).

Major Acquirers	WorldPay, Barclaycard, HSBC/Global Payments, Elavon, Lloyds TSB Cardnet

Consumer Finance	In contrast to the rest of Europe, bank credit cards are a main source of consumer finance. Because consumers in aggregate are overstretched, credit card borrowing in the UK has been static since 2004.

Key Statistics 2010
Population	61.99 million
Cards	Debit: 84.6 million Credit: 55.6 million Charge: 6.6 million Total payment cards: 146.8 million