Visa at 60: 6 Things You Need to Know About the Global Payments Giant

Global payments card provider, Visa is celebrating its 60th year of operation. The general-purpose credit card is, in fact, the world’s 2nd largest and most prominent payments network (after China’s UnionPay). This is because a large portion of the global population including merchants and customers use daily to make transactions.

Since 1958, Visa has pioneered payments innovation. Today, on our 60th anniversary, we celebrate our legacy as we help build the future of payments. Watch the first 60 years of @Visa's journey. pic.twitter.com/gjRIZN5hvH

— VisaNews (@VisaNews) September 18, 2018

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To celebrate this feat achieved by the company, here are 6 facts you didn’t know about this mega financial transactions company.

• Visa, which stands for Visa International Service Association, started out its life in 1958 as a bank — Bank of America, issuing a credit card product called the BankAmericard. About 60,000 copies of this card were mailed out to people across California.

Proud to work for @Visa, a #pioneer #leader #inclusive employer at the cutting edge of #digitalpayments helping economies to thrive #everywhereyouwanttobe @LynneBiggar https://t.co/UsMcEuWz1R #IWork4Visa

— Alexa Bailey (@BaileyAlexa) September 18, 2018

• Invented by Dee Hock, an official of a local bank in Washington State that was franchised by the Bank of America to issue its credit card brand, BankAmericard. He later went on to become the company’s first CEO.

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Visa is a real phenomenon in the business development world. Here's CEO Dee Hock's book: https://t.co/AkLYy8XsLI

— Tuur Demeester (@TuurDemeester) September 19, 2018

• The main idea behind Visa (formerly Bank Americard) was to have one type of card that would be accepted by any type of merchant anywhere in the Country. And soon it had expanded to have a presence internationally. Bank of America and then decided to form a new corporate structure for the card. This gave birth to VISA.

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1/n Visa today has a $328B market cap, bigger than virtually every bank on earth (JPM at $384B is the only one bigger). And yet it started out as a non-profit owned BY banks. How did it become more valuable than its “parents”? https://t.co/CNKd20Uozf

— Alex Rampell (@arampell) September 19, 2018

• Today, Visa counts over 3.3 billion cards globally, more than 46 million merchants and 16,000 financial institutions as part of its network and operating across 200 countries.

• Currently, the company processes 65,000 transactions per second in more than 160 currencies to the tune of $10.8 trillion every year. It occupies the second position as the largest card payment organization with 50 percent of the market share in its kitty. China’s UnionPay occupies the first place primarily because of its domestic market’s population

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Steve Murphy from @MercatorAdvisor says – UnionPay has been claiming for some time now that they are the largest issuer of cards globally, surpassing both mastercard and Visa. https://t.co/h9ZqFV01ow

— PaymentsJournal.com (@paymentsjournal) September 19, 2018

• Security for its card holders is very key for Visa and as such, the 3-digit code which is known as the “card verification value” or “CVV” found on the back of the payment card provides greater security and was first introduced by the company. The information can be provided when making purchases. It makes sure that every transaction is authentic.