E-Payment helps to boost up global GDP

SAN FRANCISCO: Moody’s Analytics, an independent provider of economic forecasting has conducted a study for Visa on the impact of using of electronic payment (e-payment) products such as credit and debit cards to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the 56 countries between 2008 and 2012. The study found e-payment added US$983 billion (RM3,045.82 billion) to the global GDP over the past few years.

According to the report, the growth rate of global real GDP was only 1.8 per cent per annum. If without increased card usage, that growth would have been just 1.6 per cent. The result concluded that card usage makes the economy more efficient, yielding a meaningful boost to economic growth, year after year, through a multitude of factors including transaction efficiencies, consumer access to credit and consumer confidence in the payment system overall.

The 56 participating countries in the study represent 93 per cent of global GDP.