What is Visa?
The Visa card is a popular payment card that uses the Visa network. It is branded by Visa. Originally, the company issued credit cards only. As for today, Visa provides debit, prepaid, and gift cards as well. Though Visa cards have the Visa symbol on them, they are not issued by the Vusa company itself. Financial institutions globally are in charge of issuing Visa cards. Visa is the most popular payment methodі globally. You, as a merchant, is more than likely to benefit from adding Visa at your checkout page. According to the latest data, Visa does around 1,700 transactions per second on average.
Understanding Visa cards
Visa itself is s credit card processing network. Its cards (credit, debit, prepaid, gift) are accepted by merchants in over 200 countries and areas across the globe. Another credit card processing networks are Mastercard, American Express, and Discover.
Financial institutions (like banks) choose Visa as a partner. Once they do so, they get a right to issue Visa credit cards. Each issuer sets its own regulations for the Visa cards. A specific bank has a right to select customers to which it offers Visa cards. Visa cards can be issued to both individuals and businesses customers,
Service agreements combine bank transaction fees and Visa network charges. Visa also partners with individual merchants. E-commerce merchants who accept Visa cards pay Visa Inc. a transaction fee per each customer transaction. This fee is a part of the cost of the network processing services that the Visa company offers.
Each Visa card requires a Visa payment processing network to process transactions. Cooperating with Visa as a primary payment processing network enables payments to be taken electronically and debited—or credited—to a cardholder’s account. All Visa cards are designed with a unique 16-digit number. The latter is printed on the top of the card along with a microchip. It safeguards the cardholder from card fraud. Let’s sum it up:
- Visa cards are payment cards that are regulated and processed by the Visa network;
- Banks and businesses partner with Visa to use the company’s network;
- Each Visa card has a 16-digit account number, chip, and magnetic stripe;
- There are four main types of Visa cards: credit cards, debit cards, and prepaid and gift cards.
Types of Visa cards
As for today, there are several types of Visa cards that are issued by financial institutions to individuals and businesses —Visa credit cards, Visa debit cards, and prepaid and gift cards.
