Visa
More info
- Origin
- BankAmericard (Bank of America)
- Released
- Type
- Card network
- Website
- visa.com
The largest card network outside China, which neither issues cards nor lends money and makes its living moving messages between banks.
It started in 1958 in Fresno, California, when Bank of America mailed 60,000 unsolicited credit cards under the name BankAmericard. The losses were spectacular, but the idea survived. The bank licensed the brand to other banks, and in 1970 they took the system over in a separate organization run by Dee Hock. In 1976 it was renamed Visa, a word meant to sound the same in every language.
Visa runs the VisaNet network and writes the rules: interchange rates, chargeback reason codes, security mandates. Issuers issue the cards and acquirers sign up the merchants. Its March 2008 IPO was the largest in US history at the time, landing in the middle of the financial crisis. Visa Europe, long a separate company owned by European banks, was bought back in 2016.