Half a million cards will be affected.
Bank Leumi (TASE: LUMI) credit card subsidiary Leumi Card Ltd.has plans to replace 500,000 Visa credit cards it has issued with Mastercard cards, in a move that will signal a dramatic change in the balance of power in the credit card market. Leumi Card, which is managed CEO Arie Heliweil, is making the switch after Visa Inc. increased its commission charges.
Leumi Card declined to comment. The company is the third largest credit card issuer in Israel with 1.3 million issued Visa cards and an additional 200,000 MasterCards. The company is expected to replace half of the Visa cards it has issued with ones from MasterCard within a year.
Visa and MasterCard International Inc. (NYSE: MA) share the Israeli credit market, although Visa has a substantially larger portion with 2.5 million of the total of 5.4 million cards issued in Israel, while MasterCard accounts for 1.3 million cards. Most of these were issued by Isracard Ltd. and a small number were issued by Visa issuers. MasterCard is the largest credit card issuer in Europe with almost a 60% market share.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes.co.il - on November 4, 2007
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