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Signature-based debit card growth rates have made an unexpected upturn while growth in PIN-based transactions has dropped considerably. Both situations can have major implications for the rapidly changing point-of-sale debit scene.
The latest round in the battle between debit card issuers and merchants over whether consumers use their signatures or personal identification numbers when initiating purchases goes to the issuers, as PIN-based point-of-sale debit growth has slowed dramatically.
In fact, new data from CCM sister publication ATM&Debit News suggest that PIN-based, or so-called online, debit purchases are growing at virtually the same rate as signature-based, or offline, debit transactions, whose growth rate has taken a sudden upturn. And that's good for issuers, who earn more acquirer-paid interchange revenue from offline debit purchases. But it's not so good for retailers and other merchants, to whom merchant acquirers pass the expense.
In March, the nation's PIN-based POS debit networks switched a combined 495.3 million purchases, up 21% from 410.5 million in March 2002. Comparatively, U.S. consumers and businesses during the first six months of this year initiated 4.6 billion offline debit purchases, up 21% from 3.8 billion...