Annual credit card and debit cards issued in the U.S. 2012-2020

A year before Covid-19 reached the United States, the number of credit cards was already declining. In 2019, there were over three times more credit cards in the USA debit cards - although the latter continued to increase in 2019 whereas credit cards did not. In 2019, Visa was the biggest credit card brand across the nation with over 300 million cards issued.

Credit cards in the U.S.

The credit card industry is a major business in the United States. By 2014, the number of credit cards in the country was estimated to exceed one billion. The number of credit card accounts registered a peak in the fourth quarter of 2016, with around 453 million credit card accounts owned in the United States as of that time. In terms of credit available on credit cards, the industry reported the highest figure to date in the fourth quarter of 2017, amounting to 2.69 trillion U.S. dollars.

Visa in the U.S.

Visa is the most popular credit card company in the U.S., both in terms of cards issued as well as purchase volume. Visa issued approximately 240 million credit cards in 2010. The purchase volume of the Visa credit cards amounted to 809 billion U.S. dollars in the same year. In comparison, there were about 171 million MasterCard credit cards in circulation in the U.S. in 2010 with their purchase volume amounting to 479 billion U.S. dollars in the same year.