Raynor de Best
Content expert covering payments and (crypto)currencies
Credit card penetration varies significantly between countries, as consumers in some countries all use Visa or Mastercard-issued credit cards while other areas do not use them. According to survey data from the World Bank – which stems from 2021, due to a three-year survey released in the summer of 2022 – Canada, Israel, and Iceland were the only countries with credit card ownership higher than 74 percent. To compare, countries such as Bangladesh and Morocco had a credit card penetration of around one percent in 2021. Several European countries – Iceland, Luxembourg, Finland, and Norway – tend to shop online outside their national borders. Whether this situation changed somewhat in later years is unclear, as newer data is not released. Statista estimates that credit card ownership will still be highest in Canada in 2028.
Credit cards in India: a land of opportunity?
Credit card penetration in India was 4.6 percent in 2021, a percentage far lower than many other big countries. Statista estimates that India’s penetration rate will increase, although by only a few percentage points. In earlier years, the credit card volume in India would grow by over 20 percent between 2019 and 2020. Since 2020, however, Indian banks started to demand higher credit scores from potential credit card customers. The growing popularity of digital wallets such as UPI - making India the biggest real-time payments market worldwide - also added significant competition to credit cards in the country.Cost of living and credit card debt
Financial hardship and the growing cost of living led consumers to use credit cards more often. U.S. credit card balances in early 2023 were nearly one trillion U.S. dollars, a sizable increase compared to previous years. Up until 2021, borrowers tried to pay off their debts as purchasing products in physical stores was hampered by lockdown measures. The same development occurred in the United Kingdom: Outstanding balances on credit card accounts in the UK increased for several months since 2022. In contrast to this development is the rise of buy now, pay later or BNPL, which might not always impact credit scores. As of 2022, the market share of BNPL in overall e-commerce payments across multiple countries worldwide was relatively highest in northwestern Europe.
