As many states begin to reopen their local economies, spending has begun to rebound.
Visa (V -0.03%) recently disclosed in a regulatory filing that total U.S. payments volume in May was down about 5% year over year. And while that might not sound like anything to write home about, it was an improvement from April, when payments volume was down 18% year over year. And in the last week of March, payments volume was 28% off its year-prior level.
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Debit card spending increased 12% in May on a year-over-year basis, while credit volume declined 21% -- an improvement on both metrics from their year-over-year comparisons in April.
Image Source: Visa
Broken out by industry, Visa has seen U.S. payments growth in food and drugstores, home improvement, retail services, automotive, retail goods, and telecom and utilities.
But volumes in many sectors -- among them, the restaurant industry, healthcare, and education -- are still down. Payments volume in travel plunged by 70% in May on a year-over-year basis, though it had been down even further in April.
Image Source: Visa
The transaction numbers in international markets broadly did not show as much improvement in May.
While Visa said that a handful of countries including New Zealand, Denmark, and Chile posted year-over-year payments growth in May, global processed transactions overall declined 12%, though that was still less of a decline than in April.
Cross-border volumes not including those in Europe, which drive Visa's international transaction revenue, declined 45% in May year over year.
That's a little surprising considering that Chief Product Officer Jack Forestell recently said that 13 million Visa cardholders in Latin America made e-commerce transactions for the first time ever in March, reflecting a broader acceleration in digital payment trends.
Travel-related cross-border volumes were still down 78% in May year over year.
