Pascarella Roars At Amex

ORLANDO, Fla. - Even before the Supreme Court announced that it would not hear the final appeal, Carl Pascarella, CEO of Visa USA, told the American Bankers' Association's Bank Card Conference that the number one nationwide card brand looked forward to beating American Express. "It's clear, American Express doesn't have an access problem; they have a product problem," Pascarella said. "And neither court decisions nor bank partnerships are going to solve it." "In the long history of Visa/Amex competition, every time we go head to head, Amex loses," Pascarella said. He also asserted that Visa has begun to attack American Express in its two traditionally strongest areas, small business customers and higher end cardholders. Pascarella said Visa has been working with bank and credit union issuers to develop a "highly competitive" package for small businesses. The new package leverages the Visa Extras rewards program, along with full flexibility between debit and credit cards, and the uncontested acceptance. This gives the small businessperson maximum control over how, where and when to pay and provides a single statement to make record keeping easy for small businesspeople who don't have an accounting department to fall back on. "So while Amex is busy hyping potential bank deals that nibble at the edges in credit, Visa Members have literally been eating their lunch in the small business arena with Visa credit and debit products," said Pascarella