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In his London office, headquarters of Visa International's Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) region, Jean-Jacques Desbons, appointed in March president and chief executive, considers the question: What are his and the region's objectives now that he's taken over this part of the credit card giant's business?
"My main challenge," says the 57-year-old veteran of French banking, is to maintain Visa's continued success in Western Europe. And to be able to do this means we have to win the debit battle the way we won the credit battle." He singles out Germany and Italy as two major markets where Visa wants to achieve higher penetration.
"The second goal is to prepare for the long-term success of Eastern Europe," Desbons adds. "And the third--even longer term--is to prepare for the development of payment systems in Africa, north of South Africa." To achieve these aims, "we have to persuade our members we can deliver services in a cost-effective way--both those which help prevent losses and those, mostly in the back office, which help reduce costs."
Desbons comes from Visa's San Francisco headquarters, where he had been executive vice president of consumer products. Before that, back in France, he ran retail banking for Credit Industriel et Commercial (CIC) and had a hand in developing Carte Bleue, the consortium of 200 banks that runs the Visa program in France.
Now, the native Parisian has a substantial base to build on. The EMEA review of Visa's 1991 annual report, written by predecessor Jacques Kosciusko, strikes a triumphant note. "Today, with nearly 62 million cardholders and card volume of $146 billion, Visa EMEA has more than twice the number of cards and twice the volume of our closest European competitor," it records.
Indeed, card volume lags the U.S. region's figure of $171 billion by only $25 billion and is growing much more rapidly. Kosciusko forecast continuing growth for Visa E and predicted that it is "well on its way to becoming the leading Visa region in sales and volume," probably during the course of 1993 and 1994, given current trends.
Demonstrating its importance in the region, debit accounted for nearly 60 percent of the EMEA card sales volume last year. Yet Visa's 25 million debit cards represent only 40 percent...