E-commerce drives charge card use up to $15 billion

Federal agencies put nearly $15 billion in purchases and travel expenses on charge cards in fiscal 1999, according to the General Services Administration's latest figures.

Purchase card transactions led the growth, with a volume increase of 24 percent over 1998's figures. Expenses charged to travel cards grew 14 percent over last year's numbers.

Sue McIver, director of GSA's services acquisition center, said the larger numbers don't necessarily mean that federal agencies are buying more. "Agencies are just migrating more purchases to e-commerce" in an effort to save money, she said.

The more than 21 million purchase card transactions made in fiscal 1999 resulted in a savings of some $1.1 billion governmentwide, GSA said.

Overall, purchase card use increased from $8 billion in fiscal 1998 to $10.2 billion in 1999. Travel card use grew from $3.9 billion in 1998 to $4.4 billion in 1999. Fiscal 1999 data on fleet cards, which are used for expenses related to government-owned vehicles, is not yet available.

In 1999, 517,082 government buyers had purchase cards, up from 340,078 in 1998.

Several agencies topped $2 billion in purchase card transactions in 1999, including the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Department of Veterans Affairs. The departments of Agriculture and Interior each had more than $1.9 billion in transactions.

Beginning Feb. 29, federal employees will be required to put travel expenses on government-issued travel charge cards.