Mexican cross-border spending opportunities for issuers

Mexican issuers have an untapped opportunity to offer card products and run marketing campaigns that better meet customer needs when they travel or shop abroad.

• Mexican travelers took an average of three leisure trips in the past two years and spend 30 percent more than average when traveling.
• They still use cash and checks for at least 30 percent of trip bookings and 39 percent of destination purchases.

Nearly 80 percent of travel spending is on cross-border travel to the U.S. Visa Performance Solutions can help you understand cross-border behaviors and create a sound strategy that stimulates cross-border spending. Our recently launched Cross-Border Decision Engine will allow you to:

• Identify key cross-border opportunities based on portfolio and market spending patterns.
• Improve cross-border marketing campaigns by targeting different profiles of cardholders with customized strategies.
• Monitor cross-border trends and anticipate changes in cardholder behavior.
• Increase portfolio profitability, since cross-border transactions are typically more profitable for issuers than domestic ones.

Payment Types Used to Book Trips

Payment Types Used at Destinations

Spending Behaviors

Cross-border spending behaviors and trends

Mexican travelers spend an average of $3,025 when they travel, 1.3 times the global average. For travelers, shopping is the most popular travel activity, followed by eating at restaurants and visiting local venues.

Top merchant categories for Mexican cross-border spending

Clothing is one of the top spending categories for international card spending. Other popular merchant categories include hotels and supermarkets.

Credit Card Spending Categories

Debit Card Spending Categories

Travelers’ ages tend to be between 25-44 years old, and the United States is the most popular destination, followed by Canada and Spain.

Key facts about cross-border spending in the U.S.

Spending

78 percent of Mexican cross-border spending is in the United States.

Transaction Average

Average cross-border transactions are $83.

Transaction Types

49 percent of cross border spending are face-to-face transactions.

Cities with the most card transactions

Cross-border spending for credit and debit spending is concentrated in these cities:

• Face-to-face transactions concentrate on cities such as McAllen, Las Vegas, El Paso.
• E-commerce transactions concentrate on cities such as Seattle, New York, Houston.
• Credit transactions concentrate on cities such as Las Vegas, New York, Houston.
• Debit transactions concentrate on cities such as El Paso, McAllen, Laredo.

About 87 percent of Mexican travelers share their experience online:

• 50 percent of travelers post photos on a private digital channel.
• 43 percent of travelers update their social media status.
• 41 percent communicate via instant messaging.

Visa Performance Solutions can help you understand how to best capitalize on this information to develop products and design marketing campaigns that resonate with Mexican consumers engaging in cross-border purchases.

Cross-border decision engine: Credit and debit card profiles

The cross-border decision engine is an automated solution powered by VisaNet data that allows us to generate and update cross-border traveler profiles on a regular basis based on our proprietary data-driven analysis.

Using these detailed analyses, we’ve identified five different customer segments based in cross-border credit spending behaviors. Understanding these customer profiles can be instrumental in developing or refining your product portfolio, who to target, and how to approach marketing.

Credit card customer profiles

Border seasonal traveler

• Travels during peak holiday seasons and primarily to cities close to the U.S.-Mexico border.

Digital seasonal traveler

• Travels during peak holiday seasons and uses their cards primarily at e-commerce merchants.

Premium traveler

• Travels year-round with an average spend much higher than the rest of the segments.

Border traveler

• Travels year-round, primarily to cities close to the U.S.-Mexico border.

Cross-border cheater

• Uses their card to book vacations on the Internet but does not use her card during the vacation period.

Debit card customer profiles

Millennial traveler

• Uses cards for online transactions and primarily in the cities closer to the U.S.-Mexico border.

Seasonal traveler

• Travels during peak holiday seasons and tends to use the card at the point of sale.

Seasonal cash traveler

• Travels during peak holiday seasons and uses a card primarily for ATM cash withdrawals.

Cash traveler

• Travels year-round and uses their card primarily for ATM cash withdrawals.

Visa Integrated Marketing Solutions (VIMS)

VIMS offers the resources, expertise and scale needed to launch efficient, cost-effective marketing strategies for cross-border spending and other marketing initiatives. VIMS includes:

• Comprehensive campaign design and strategy.
• Robust targeting.
• Customized offer and market-proven creative design.
• Multi-channel campaign execution.
• Tracking and results measurement.