Business at Visa’s U.S. Unit Up 8%

San Francisco-based Visa International Inc., the biggest credit card company, said Wednesday that its U.S. unit processed $989 billion in transactions in 2002, or 8% more than a year earlier, as more customers used debit cards.

The number of Visa credit, debit, commercial, prepaid and other cards rose to 386 million from 373 million as the company processed more than 14 billion transactions, a 9% increase from the 13 billion it processed a year earlier, Visa spokesman John Abrams said.

The volume of Visa’s check cards, or debit cards, rose 17% to $380 billion from $324 billion and represents more than a third of the company’s transaction volume, the company said.

By contrast, Visa’s credit card volume rose 3% to $609 billion from $591 billion.

The portion of payments in the U.S. made with debit cards in 2002 rose to about 6.4%. About 12% of U.S. consumer spending is done with a Visa card.