Visa and MasterCard brands collectively account for 86 per cent of all European payment cards, according to RBR’s latest report.

Visa held the largest share in Europe as a whole and in western Europe, while MasterCard had a larger share in central and eastern Europe, found the report, Payment Cards Issuing and Acquiring Europe 2016, which covered 31 countries in the region.

Overall, the market share of card schemes in Europe in 2014 was: Visa 28 per cent, Maestro 21 per cent, MasterCard 20 per cent, Visa Electron 13 per cent, V PAY 3 per cent, and ‘others’ 15 per cent.

The research found that Visa Electron and Maestro were gradually being migrated to Visa and MasterCard – a trend that could be expected to continue over the next few years, as the latter two increasingly become issued as debit cards with current accounts.

Visa was particularly strong in the UK and Ireland, where there had been significant migration from other brands. In Denmark, no Visa Electron cards remained by the end of 2014 as they had all been converted to Visa debit products. Meanwhile, V PAY, a chip-only product which has only been issued in six European markets, remains rare, with Germany and Italy accounting for 96 per cent of V PAY cards in circulation in Europe.

Migration from Maestro to MasterCard was particularly significant in Greece and Poland. In Greece, largely because of contactless functionality, which was initially introduced on MasterCard cards but not on Maestro. In Poland, MasterCard has been more closely associated with PoS transactions than Maestro, which tended to be used for cash withdrawals.

Domestic and private label cards accounted for 5 per cent of the European total and were present in a number of markets in both regions (although many are now being replaced or dual-badged with international schemes). They were strongest in Russia and Switzerland, where they represented 21 per cent and 16 per cent of all payment cards respectively.

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