What is a Visa Credit Card?

Sometimes you'll see 'Visa' written as a name, and other times you see it in all capital letters: 'VISA.' The difference is, the all-caps version stands for Visa International Service Association. Either usage refers to the multinational credit card corporation based out of San Francisco. Visa credit cards have the largest electronic retail payment network in the world. Visa manages payments coming from all types of customers: merchants, businesses, governments, financial institutions, and of course, consumers. Visa captured 48% of the debit card market and 44% of the credit card market in the U.S. in 2006.

For those old enough to remember 1970s America, you may remember when Visa was called 'BankAmericard.' That card started in 1958, when Bank of America sent out 60,000 unsolicited credit cards ' not applications, but actual working credit cards. It was a huge success, at least at first.

Credit cards themselves weren't all that new, it's just that Americans tended to have credit accounts with individual retailers. But Visa, backed up by the massive Bank of America strived to be an efficient, unified card that would consolidate a customer's charges from several merchants into one service. By late 1959, Visa was accepted by 20,000 retailers.

But Bank of America's top brass had too much faith in the goodness of the American consumer. Nearly one-quarter of the accounts went delinquent, and the new crime of 'credit card fraud' gained a foothold. When all the damage, including withering media reports, was totaled, Bank of America lost around $20 million. But by the mid 1960s, much of the mess had been cleaned up and credit cards again became part of the culture. By 1974, a multinational corporation called IBANCO was set up solely to manage the international BankAmericard revolving credit program.

In 1976 BankAmericard changed its name to Visa. The name was chosen because it was easily recognizable in many languages, and because a 'visa' is commonly understood to denote gaining entry. Today, Visa offers a wide range of product payment methods. These are used by financial institutions worldwide to offer debit, credit, prepaid, and commercial programs. VisaNet is Visa's global network, which fights fraud and manages risk. VisaNet also aids in resolution of disputes, and the implementation of rewards programs and other incentives. Visa is accepted in 170 countries worldwide.

There are almost countless styles of credit cards you can get from Visa, from simple no-perks, low (relative) interest rate cards to those that offer rewards such as airline miles and cash back. If you get a Visa credit card, you can be assured that it is accepted in more places around the world than any other card.

About the Author:

Peter Carville is a freelance article writer who writes for Financial Facts about the current financial news and the credit crunch.