VISA (credit card) - Definition and Overview

VISA is a brand of credit card operated by the VISA International Service Association of San Francisco, California, USA owned by 21,000 financial institutions that issues and markets its own Visa products. The VISA card was launched in 1976, and the card was derived from the earlier BankAmericard issued by 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. In the United Kingdom, it was known as the BarclayCard, issued by Barclay's Bank. 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.

VISA also operates the Plus ATM (bank machine) network.

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.

Bank One (now J.P. Morgan Chase and Co.) is the world's largest issuer of the Visa card.

See also

• MasterCard
• American Express
• Discover

External links

• Official overview (http://www.international.visa.com/av/overview.jsp)
• Yahoo! - Visa International Company Profile (http://biz.yahoo.com/ic/40/40515.html)