The Visa and Plus logos.

Visa is a brand of credit card and debit card operated by the Visa International Service Association of San Francisco, California, USA, an economic joint venture of 21,000 financial institutions that issue and market Visa products. Image File history File links Visa_Logo. ... Image of the Visa Credit Card logo This is a copyrighted and/or trademarked logo. ... Logo of the Plus ATM cash machine network This is a copyrighted and/or trademarked logo. ... A logotype (from the Greek λογότυπο), commonly known as a logo, is the graphic element, symbol, and icon of a trademark or brand, which is set in a special typeface or arranged in a particular way. ... A brand is a collection of images and ideas representing an economic producer; more specifically, it refers to the concrete symbols such as a name, logo, slogan, and design scheme. ... Credit cards A credit card system is a type of retail transaction settlement and credit system, named after the small plastic card issued to users of the system. ... A debit card is an ISO 7810 card which physically resembles a credit card, and, like a credit card, is used as an alternative to cash when making purchases. ... Nickname: The City by the Bay; Fog City Location of the City and County of San Francisco, California Coordinates: City-County San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom Area    - City 600. ... A cooperative (also co-operative or co-op) is an association of persons who join together to carry on an economic activity of mutual benefit, in an egalitarian fashion. ... A financial institution acts as an agent that provides financial services for its clients. ...

Background

The Visa card was launched in 1976 and the card was derived from the earlier BankAmericard issued by the Bank of America. Internationally, BankAmericard was known by other names prior to the introduction of the Visa brand for the network. The blue-white-gold motif used by BankAmericard was also used for these cards. 1976 (MCMLXXVI) was a leap year starting on Thursday. ... Typical Bank of America consumer banking center Bank of America NYSE: BAC TYO: 8648 , headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina (see Bank of America Corporate Center), is the largest commercial bank in the United States measured in deposits (although Citigroup has higher assets worldwide), and the third-largest company in the...

• In Canada, an alliance of banks (including Toronto-Dominion Bank, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, Royal Bank of Canada, and Bank of Nova Scotia) issued credit cards under the Chargex name.
• In France, it was known as Carte Bleue (Blue Card). The logo still appears on many French-issued VISA cards today.
• In the UK, the only BankAmericard issuer for some years was Barclaycard.

The term Visa was conceived by the company's founder, Dee Hock. He believed that the word was instantly recognizable in many languages in many countries, and that it also denoted universal acceptance. Nowadays, the term VISA has become a recursive backronym for Visa International Service Association. The Toronto-Dominion Bank TSX: TD NYSE: TD TYO: 8640 is the second largest Canadian bank with over 52,000 employees in offices around the world. ... The Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce TSX: CM NYSE: BCM, better known to most customers as CIBC, is one of Canadas major banks. ... The Royal Bank of Canada (TSX: RY, NYSE: RY) is Canadas largest chartered bank. ... Scotiabank (TSX: BNS NYSE: BNS), formally known as The Bank of Nova Scotia, is one of Canadas Big Five banks. ... Carte Bleue Visa from Société Générale Carte Bleue (or Blue Card in English) is a major debit card payment scheme operating in France. ... The Barclaycard is a credit card associated with the Barclays Bank in the UK. It offers MasterCard and VISA versions. ... Dee Hock is the founder and former CEO of the VISA credit card company. ... A recursive acronym (or occasionally recursive initialism) is an abbreviation which refers to itself in the expression for which it stands. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...

Corporate structure

Sample Visa credit card

Visa offers through its issuing members the following types of cards: Image File history File links VisaCardNoBank. ... Image File history File links VisaCardNoBank. ...

• Debit cards (pay from a checking / savings account) (aka "pay now")
• Credit cards (pay monthly payments with interest) (aka "pay later")
• Prepaid cards (pay from a cash account that has no checkwriting privileges) (aka "pay before")

Visa operates the PLUS ATM network and the Interlink EFTPOS network, which facilitate the "debit" protocol used with debit cards and prepaid cards. This article needs cleanup. ... A credit card system is a type of retail transaction settlement and credit system, named after the small plastic card issued to users of the system. ... Addition is one of the basic operations of arithmetic. ... An NCR interior, multi-function ATM in the USA Smaller indoor ATMs dispense money inside convenience stores and other busy areas, such as this off-premise Wincor Nixdorf mono-function ATM in Sweden An on-premise NCR interior, multi-function through-the-wall ATM at a CIBC branch in Canada... EFTPOS (Electronic Funds Transfer at Point of Sale) is a device by which sales transactions can be directly debited to the customers bank account at the point of sale, through the use of a debit card (sometimes the same card used with Automatic Teller Machines). ...

Visa's corporate structure is regionally de-centralised, which is unique in the payment scheme industry. A corporation is a legal person which, while being composed of natural persons, exists completely separately from them. ...

Legally, Visa comprises four non-stock, separately incorporated companies that employ 6000 people worldwide: Visa International Service Association ("VISA"), the worldwide parent entity; Visa U.S.A. Inc.; Visa Canada Association; and Visa Europe Ltd. The latter three separately incorporated regions have the status of group members of Visa International Service Association, whereas the unincorporated regions (Visa Latin America [LAC], Visa Asia Pacific and Visa Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa [CEMEA]) are divisions within VISA.

The de-centralised nature of Visa allows it to respond to member needs and adapt the Visa International rules and products to suit the individual needs of their regional members. Regional banks therefore have a strong stake in the governance of their region.

The Visa International Board has the dual responsibilities of:

1. Superintendence of the worldwide interests of the Association
2. Strategic direction and supervision of the three unincorporated divisions and the central staff of Visa Worldwide services.

The Visa Association is not a profit- driven organisation and the four companies that make up Visa issue no cards and make no loans. Members (about 21,000 worldwide) fund day to day management and make the investments needed to maintain and develop the Visa payment system. Fees are levied according to the following formula:

 Operating and Marketing costs + Investments in new products, platforms and systems + Increase in Reserves = Members annual fees 

On October 11, 2006, VISA announced it will be eliminating its membership structure in most parts of the world, instead becoming a publicly-traded company. [1] This is being done in response to a similar move by MasterCard.

Features of the standard product

Even though the service is offered by thousands of banks, the end result is standardized for consumers by the Visa International Association. Two protocols are used, depending upon the type of card marketed, often called "credit" and "debit". Credit as a financial term, used in such terms as credit card, refers to the granting of a loan and the creation of debt. ... link title Debit is an accounting and bookkeeping term that comes from the Latin word debere which means to owe. ...

The debit protocol involves using the card at a point-of-sale terminal (POS) or ATM where the PLUS or Interlink logo is shown, with a Visa card that has the PLUS or Interlink logo on the back of the card. A PIN (personal identification number, known by its acronym) is used to identify the cardholder. The money is deducted from the attached checking account or prepaid account (which is similar with no paper check-writing capability) or, more commonly, from a current account). An NCR interior, multi-function ATM in the USA Smaller indoor ATMs dispense money inside convenience stores and other busy areas, such as this off-premise Wincor Nixdorf mono-function ATM in Sweden An on-premise NCR interior, multi-function through-the-wall ATM at a CIBC branch in Canada... A personal identification number (PIN) is a numeric value (sometimes expressed as text using the standard telephone dial mapping) that is used in certain systems to gain access, and authenticate. ... <alternateuses> <Image:Paper 450x450. ...

The credit protocol involves using the card at a POS or a banking center where the Visa logo is shown. The cardholder's signature is generally used for identification, usually together with the cardholder's civic registration number or ID card/passport number. Holders of any Visa card may use the credit protocol even if the card is marketed as a debit card or prepaid card (basically since it has the Visa logo on the front of the card). One source of confusion is the merchant may ask "debit or credit?" even though the words are not defined that way in most dictionaries and even though the card may say "debit card" right on it, and still be available for "credit" transactions. In this way it is a misnomer that the credit cards are only for loans or that the debit protocol is only for checking accounts. Banks actually choose various backend methods of handling the accounts, making "debit" a generic synonym for "Plus/Interlink" (and the equivalent competitive networks), and "credit" a generic synonym for "Visa" (and MasterCard, American Express, Discover Card, which have similar systems). For other uses, see Signature (disambiguation). ... Look up Misnomer in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... American Express (NYSE: AXP) is a diversified global financial services company, headquartered in New York City. ... Discover Card is a credit card issued primarily in the United States, with 50 million cardholders. ...

The names of the two protocols use the arbitrary "debit" and "credit" from accounting meaning left and right, and they originally had the meanings (and still do to many people) that with credit the cardholder pays later for the purchase, and with debit the cardholder pays immediately. The truth today is that they are merely two different protocols, with which there is still considerable confusion, and even lawsuits over the definitions of products for purposes of antitrust law. Banks can use independent methods to actually recover the money paid for purchases, regardless of which protocol is used. For example, the debit protocol can be used to incur a debt to the bank, and the credit protocol can be used to take money from a checking account. A lawsuit is a civil action brought before a court in which the party commencing the action, the plaintiff, seeks a legal remedy. ... Antitrust is also the name of a movie, see Antitrust (film) Antitrust or competition laws are laws whose stated purpose is the promotion of economic and business competition by prohibiting anti-competitive behavior and unfair business practices. ... For other uses, see Debt (disambiguation). ...

Some outstanding rules of the association include rules about how a cardholder must be identified for security, how transactions may be denied by the bank and how banks may cooperate for fraud prevention, and how to keep that identification and fraud protection standard and non-discriminatory. One notable rule is that no merchant accepting Visa, whether a mom-and-pop store or a government body like a university, may estabish any minimum purchase, maximum purchase, or surcharge for any Visa (credit) transaction(Except for Australian markets where recent changes by the Reserve Bank have allowed retailers to apply a surcharge on any credit card transaction, VISA or otherwise.) They can establish surcharges for debit. Enforcement of the rules, however, is by individual banks, and they may or may not know the rules well. So, a restaurant may charge a surcharge or minimum, which may at first be upheld by the bank in many cases, unless the consumer knows the association rules well. Other rules govern what creates an enforcable proof of authorization by the cardholder (starting from a signature or PIN), and continuing to lower levels of proof such as a shipment accepted or a statement by the consumer. To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... A small business may be defined as a business with a small number of employees. ... Representation of a university class, 1350s. ... Toms Restaurant, a restaurant in New York made familiar by Suzanne Vega and the television sitcom Seinfeld For other uses, see Restaurant (disambiguation). ...

Recent complications include the addition of exceptions for non-signed purchases by telephone or on the Internet, and an additional security system called "Verified by Visa" for purchases on the internet. An old rotary telephone This article is about telephone technology. ...

Controversy

Some merchants, primarily small businesses, still systematically establish minimum purchases or surcharges and get away with it because individual consumers often do not care enough about the small amount or know the rules. In some countries this is backed by legislation, eg. in the UK and Australia a retailer is perfectly within his/her rights to impose a surcharge for paying by credit card and the bank/payment system cannot demand that a retailer does not do this. Others deny use of the system to cardholders with foreign banks. If these are non-signed transactions, the discretion may be allowed by the merchant (for example, the merchant may say they only accept phone orders on Visa cards from domestic banks); however, if it is signed or PIN-based transaction, then it is probably against the rules. A large and growing problem exists with account balance ownership - the cardholder's right to be able to keep track of his balance. Automatic charges based on complex if-then statements and contingencies, such as deep contract clauses that say a merchant may collect any due amounts through a Visa transaction without any signature, the association's hertofore refusal to grant future prices on foreign exchange rates (they could be published on the internet from a newspaper standard of the previous business day, or they could be ultimately calculated on the receipt itself) and merchant charges for "any denial" of a transaction contribute to this lack of ownership. Innovations to solve this problem include the dropping of over-the-limit fees (such as with Citibank), and a standard system of requiring check-type information for every transaction: name of payee, amount, date, permission of cardholder. A similar system is needed for automatic charges by merchants. In banking and accountancy, the outstanding balance is the amount of money owned, (or due), that remains in a deposit account (or a loan account) at a given date, after all past remittances, payments and withdrawal have been accounted for. ... In philosophy and logic, contingency is the status of facts that are not logically necessary. ... A contract is a promise or an agreement made of a set of promises. ... In grammar, a clause is a group of words consisting of a subject and a predicate, although, in non-finite clauses, the subject is often not explicitly given. ... Citibank was founded in 1812 as the City Bank of New York. ...

Logo

The blue and gold in Visa's logo were originally chosen to represent the blue sky and golden-colored hills of California, where Bank of America was founded. It has been suggested that Califas be merged into this article or section. ... Typical Bank of America consumer banking center Bank of America NYSE: BAC TYO: 8648 , headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina (see Bank of America Corporate Center), is the largest commercial bank in the United States measured in deposits (although Citigroup has higher assets worldwide), and the third-largest company in the...

The Visa Flag Symbol is used by merchants to denote the acceptance of Visa credit cards.

Issuers

JPMorgan Chase became the world's largest Visa card issuer after acquiring Bank One, which was the largest Visa card issuer. J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. ... Bank One, based in Chicago, Illinois, was the sixth-largest bank in the United States. ...

Sponsorships

Olympics

Since the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympic Games, as a worldwide Olympic partner, Visa is the only form of electronic payment accepted at all venues and Olympic-related transactions. Its current contract with the IOC as the exclusive payment card will continue through 2012. To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Bold textralf is gay IOC redirects here. ...

Others

VISA is currently the shirt sponsor for the Argentina national rugby union team. The Argentina national rugby team, nicknamed los Pumas, is currently the top rugby union team in the Americas. ...

Until 2005, VISA was the exclusive sponsor of the Triple Crown thoroughbred tournament. The Triple Crown of Thoroughbred Racing (Triple Crown for short, but the term is also used in other sports, and thus the full name should be used when it could cause confusion) consists of three races for three-year-old thoroughbred horses. ...

Legal proceedings

The neutrality of this article or section may be compromised by "weasel words". You can help Wikipedia by improving weasel-worded statements.

• Visa settled a lawsuit to Wal-Mart for billions of dollars. According to a website associated with the suit [2], Visa and MasterCard settled their claims for a total of $3.05 billion, and Visa's share of this settlement is reported to have been the larger. As of the spring of 2005, it is expected to have raised its interchange rate from 1.634% to 1.99%, which can be expected to affect the discount rates paid by retail locations to the banks with which they deal.

• It has been rumored for years that Visa and MasterCard have been working in tandem for a long time; some believe they are really the same company.^{[citation needed]} In fact, while most card-issuing banks in the United States are members of both Visa and MasterCard, the associations are distinct, and have some key differences. The United States Department of Justice unsuccessfully sued the two associations over allegations that their common ownership was detrimental to competition. The United States Department of Justice was successful with claims brought at the same time against both companies under the Sherman Antitrust Act for preventing banks from issuing American Express cards. In late 2004, the Supreme Court declined to reconsider a lower court's ruling and thereby cleared the way for MasterCard- and Visa-issuing banks to begin issuing American Express and Discover cards. Subsequently, several major issuers like MBNA and Citibank have begun issuing American Express cards, in addition to Visa and MasterCard.

Image File history File links Unbalanced_scales. ... A lawsuit is a civil action brought before a court in which the party commencing the action, the plaintiff, seeks a legal remedy. ... Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... DOJ headquarters in Washington, D.C. Justice Department redirects here. ... DOJ headquarters in Washington, D.C. Justice Department redirects here. ... The Sherman Antitrust Act, formally known as the Act of July 2, 1890, ch. ... The supreme court in some countries, provinces, and states, functions as a court of last resort whose rulings cannot be challenged. ... For other uses, see MBNA (disambiguation). ... Citibank was founded in 1812 as the City Bank of New York. ...

Initial public offering

On October 11, 2006, Visa announced that some of its businesses would be merged and become a publicly traded company, Visa Inc.[3][4] A publicly traded corporation often refers to a company whose shares are traded on the open market, such as a stock market. ...

Board of directors

As of August 2005, the following banks are represented on Visa's U.S.A. board of directors: 2005 is a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

1. JPMorgan Chase (2 seats)
2. Bank of America
3. Wachovia
4. US Bancorp
5. Wells Fargo
6. Providian Financial Corporation
7. First National Bank of Nebraska
8. Texas First Bank
9. National City Corporation
10. SunTrust Bank

J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. ... Typical Bank of America consumer banking center Bank of America NYSE: BAC TYO: 8648 , headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina (see Bank of America Corporate Center), is the largest commercial bank in the United States measured in deposits (although Citigroup has higher assets worldwide), and the third-largest company in the... Wachovia Corporation NYSE: WB, based in Charlotte, North Carolina is one of the largest banking chains in the United States. ... U.S. Bancorp (NYSE: USB) is a financial services holding company, headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota. ... A typical Wells Fargo branch, located in Berkeley, California Wells Fargo & Co. ... Providian Financial Corporation NYSE: PVN (now known as Washington Mutual Card Services) is one of the leading credit card issuers in the United States. ... The National City Corporation (NYSE: NCC) is one of the ten largest banks in America in terms of deposits. ... SunTrust Banks, Inc. ...

See also

• Visa Debit
• Visa Electron
• MasterCard
• American Express
• Diners Club
• Discover
• China UnionPay
• JCB

Visa Debit is a major debit card issued by Visa in the United Kingdom. ... Visa Electron logo Visa Electron is a debit card available across most of the world, with the exception of the United States, Canada and Australia. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... American Express (NYSE: AXP) is a diversified global financial services company, headquartered in New York City. ... Diners Club International, originally founded as Diners Club, was formed in 1950 by Frank X. McNamara, Ralph Schneider and Alfred Bloomingdale. ... Discover Card is a credit card issued primarily in the United States, with 50 million cardholders. ... China UnionPay the only credit card organization in China, which now can be accepted in US, Western Europe,East Asia,and Southeast Asia. ... Japan Credit Bureau, usually abbreviated as JCB, is a credit card company based in Tokyo, Japan. ...

External links

• Official VISA corporate profile
• Official VISA International profile
• Yahoo! — VISA U.S.A. Inc. Company Profile
• Yahoo! — VISA International Company Profile