Credit card companies affected by corona virus crisis

Credit card companies are also hit by the worldwide outbreak of the new corona virus. Due to the strict restrictions that apply in many countries, their cards are used less often to pay in shops or restaurants, for example.

The situation prompts market leader Visa to further lower its sales forecast for this quarter. The company has noticed that since mid-March, the number of purchases by travelers has fallen considerably. But credit card use online is also declining. Visa had previously warned about the adverse effects of the virus outbreak in Asia.

American Express has the same problems. CEO Steve Squeri reports a dramatic decline in the number of transactions in March. He is currently looking into how to cut costs in the short term so that the company can “sit out the storm”. If it were up to Squeri, none of the more than 60,000 employees would have to fear forced redundancies in 2020.

Industry colleague Mastercard warned last month that the corona virus would take a big bite out of the turnover for the time being. The same applies to payment processor PayPal, which says it is suffering from a drop in the number of orders in foreign online stores.