Visa Inc.

• 1. The Fresno Experiment

  ›

  On the 18th of September 1958, Bank of America officially launched its BankAmericard credit card program in Fresno, California. In the weeks leading up to that launch, BofA had saturated Fresno mailboxes with an initial mass mailing of 65,000 unsolicited credit cards. Joseph P. Williams led the Customer Services Research Group, which convinced senior executives to pursue this world-first mass mailing of actual working cards rather than mere applications. The test initially went smoothly until BofA panicked over rumors of a competitor launching their own drop in San Francisco. By March 1959, drops began in San Francisco and Sacramento, expanding to Los Angeles by June. Within months, the entire state of California was saturated with over 2 million credit cards accepted by 20,000 merchants. However, the program quickly unraveled as 22 percent of accounts became delinquent instead of the expected 4 percent. Police departments across the state faced numerous incidents of what was then called the brand new crime of credit card fraud. Politicians and journalists joined the general uproar against Bank of America when it emerged that customers were liable for all charges, even those resulting from fraud. BofA officially lost over $8.8 million on the launch, though the actual loss including advertising and overhead probably reached around $20 million.

• 2. The Cooperative Turn

  ›

  In June 1970, Bank of America gave up control of the BankAmericard program after Dee Hock persuaded other licensees to form a committee investigating the licensee program's problems. Hock had been asked to supervise that bank's launch of its own licensed version of BankAmericard in the Pacific Northwest market in 1968. He realized the system had developed and grown very rapidly in an ad hoc fashion, creating serious interchange transaction issues between banks. The various BankAmericard issuer banks took control of the program, creating National BankAmericard Inc., an independent Delaware corporation which would manage, promote and develop the BankAmericard system within the United States. Hock became NBI's first president and CEO. By 1972, licenses had been granted in 15 countries, but international licensees soon encountered various problems with their licensing programs. They hired Hock as a consultant to help them restructure their relationship with BofA. In 1974, the International Bankcard Company was founded to manage the international BankAmericard program. On the 16th of December 1976, directors determined that bringing various international networks together into a single network with a single name would be in the best interests of the corporation. BankAmericard, Barclaycard, Carte Bleue, Chargex, Sumitomo Card, and all other licensees united under the new name Visa, retaining the distinctive blue, white and gold flag.

• 3. The Four Data Centers

  ›

  Nearly all Visa transactions worldwide are processed through the company's directly operated VisaNet at one of four secure data centers located in Ashburn, Virginia; Highlands Ranch, Colorado; London, England; and Singapore. These facilities are heavily secured against natural disasters, crime, and terrorism while able to operate independently from each other and from external utilities if necessary. The systems can handle up to 30,000 simultaneous transactions and up to 100 billion computations every second. This infrastructure supports Visa's position as the world's second-largest card payment organization after being surpassed by China UnionPay in 2015 based on annual value of card payments transacted and number of issued cards. However, because UnionPay's size is based primarily on its domestic market in China, Visa remains the dominant bankcard company in the rest of the world where it commands a 50 percent market share of total card payments. In 2025, Visa's global network processed 257.5 billion transactions worth US$14.2 trillion. The company does not issue cards or extend credit but provides financial institutions with Visa-branded payment products that they then use to offer credit, debit, prepaid and cash access programs to their customers.

• 4. The Public Listing

  ›

  On the 3rd of October 2007, Visa completed its corporate restructuring with the formation of Visa Inc., merging Visa Canada, Visa International, and Visa USA into the new public company. The second step came on the 9th of November 2007, when the new Visa Inc. submitted its $10 billion IPO filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. On the 25th of February 2008, Visa announced it would go ahead with an IPO of half its shares. The IPO took place on the 18th of March 2008, when Visa sold 406 million shares at US$44 per share, raising US$17.9 billion in what was then the largest initial public offering in U.S. history. On the 20th of March 2008, the IPO underwriters exercised their overallotment option, purchasing an additional 40.6 million shares, bringing Visa's total IPO share count to 446.6 million and total proceeds to US$19.1 billion. Visa now trades under the ticker symbol V on the New York Stock Exchange. More than 35 investment banks participated in the deal in several capacities, most notably as underwriters including JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs & Co., Bank of America Securities LLC, Citi, HSBC, Merrill Lynch & Co., UBS Investment Bank and Wachovia Securities.

• 5. The Antitrust Battles

  ›

  In 2011, MasterCard and Visa were sued in a class action by ATM operators claiming the credit card networks' rules effectively fix ATM access fees in violation of US federal law. The lawsuit was filed by the National ATM Council and independent operators of automated teller machines alleging that network rules prohibit ATM operators from offering lower prices for transactions over PIN-debit networks not affiliated with Visa or MasterCard. In 1998, the U.S. Department of Justice sued Visa over rules prohibiting its issuing banks from doing business with American Express and Discover, winning its case at trial in 2001. On the 27th of November 2012, a federal judge entered an order granting preliminary approval to a proposed settlement to a class-action lawsuit filed in 2005 by merchants and trade associations against Mastercard and Visa regarding alleged price-fixing practices. A settlement of US$6.24 billion was scheduled for court approval on the 7th of November 2019. In March 2021, the United States Justice Department announced its investigation into whether Visa is engaging in anticompetitive practices in the debit card market. On the 24th of September 2024, the Justice Department sued Visa, alleging that Visa used illegal tactics to maintain a monopoly in debit-card payments.

• 6. The Digital Pivot

  ›

  In September 2007, Visa introduced Visa payWave contactless payment technology allowing cardholders to wave their cards in front of contactless payment terminals without physically swiping or inserting them. This feature uses RFID technology similar to Mastercard Contactless service and American Express ExpressPay. On the 13th of January 2020, Plaid announced it had signed a definitive agreement to be acquired by Visa for $5.3 billion, double the company's most recent Series C round valuation of $2.65 billion. The deal was expected to close within 3-6 months subject to regulatory review but was abandoned on the 12th of January 2021 after the United States Department of Justice filed a lawsuit seeking to block the acquisition. Visa also launched mVisa mobile payment app allowing payment via smartphones using QR code first introduced in India in 2015. In September 2014, Visa Inc launched a new service replacing account information on plastic cards with tokens as a digital account number. On the 29th of March 2021, Visa announced acceptance of stablecoin USDC to settle transactions on its network while partnering with First Boulevard neobank promoting cryptocurrency.