Cards and Consumer Finance in Portugal 2008

Lafferty Cards & Consumer Finance in Portugal 2008

Introduction

Lafferty Cards & Consumer Finance in Portugal 2008 is the most comprehensive research available on consumer finance and credit cards in the market. A mixture of quantitative and qualitative methods is used by a dedicated team of in-house researchers and analysts to produce accurate and unbiased data. It comprises of 11 sections: key facts, demographics, the economy, consumer credit market, cards market, credit cards profit pool, pricing and enhancements, networks, credit cards issuers, merchant acquiring & processing and other cards market information. The report is reader friendly through the use of a bullet point format and graphs, pie charts and tables to help illustrate key data. Industry experts are always on hand to talk you through any data queries.

Highlights Household debt levels are above the Western European average and non-mortgage lending accounts for around 20 percent of the total.

Portugal is one of the second-most profitable credit card markets in Western Europe as measured by profit per card, although usage remains relatively low.

While profits per credit card dropped by 20 percent year-on-year in 2006 and transaction-driven profits have decreased - due a substantial cut in merchant service charges between 2003 and 2006 - the market remains profitable as a result of high interest rates, relatively high average annual card fees and high annual spend.
Increasing credit card penetration through active marketing is still a priority, although increased usage of credit cards (and in particular their usage for borrowing) has begun to emerge as the most challenging task ahead for local issuers.