1958
Visa traces its origins to Bank AmeriCard, which Bank of America founded in 1958.
“Founded in 1958 by Bank of America as Bank AmeriCard.”
Topic
Visa
29 facts from 8 episodes, in date order. These are what speakers said on the shows, each linked to the moment it was said. They aren't independently verified.
1970
Visa's original governance let any member call a vote, with an 80% threshold required for changes.
“Well, they set the threshold at 80% for anything to happen.”
1970
The founders obtained a letter from the U.S. Department of Justice indicating it would not challenge the banks' collaboration in forming the network.
“So they actually get a letter from the DOJ saying, like, hall pass, you're good on this one.”
1970s
Dee Hock held an internal naming contest for the new global brand, offering a $50 prize, and the winning name was Visa.
“And he offers a $50 prize for the winning entry that is chosen.”
1970s
Dee Hock gave Aram Tatulian, recruited from TRW, nine months to build Visa's authorization system from scratch.
“D gives him nine months to build this entire thing from scratch”
1970s
Visa's BASE II settlement system cut average settlement time from about a week to overnight batch settlement.
“average settlement time for transactions on the Visa network go from taking a week on average to happening in batch overnight every single night.”
1970s
Automating settlement saved member banks about $15 million in labor and postage costs in its first year.
“it ends up saving about $15 million in labor and postage costs to the banks by automating this just in year one.”
1971
In 1971 Dee Hock started BASE, the Bank of AmeriCard Authorization System Experimental, to automate transaction authorization.
“In 1971, right after NBI is formed, D starts a project called the Bank of AmeriCard Authorization System experimental or BASE”
1975
In 1975 the DOJ ended exclusivity between Visa and MasterCard, allowing banks to belong to both networks, which is called duality.
“That does happen in 1975, and so this concept of duality takes hold for the banks.”
1980s
Visa rented spare capacity on CompuServe's network to carry digital transactions from merchant terminals.
“Visa ends up renting CompuServe network capacity to send their digital transactions from merchant point-of-sale terminals.”
1980s
In Visa's digital point-of-sale pilot, participating banks and merchants reduced chargebacks by 82%.
“banks and merchants that were participating in this program reduced chargebacks to the system by 82% relative to what was happening before.”
1984
Dee Hock left Visa in 1984 after conflict with its conservative bank owners.
“A lot of conflict starts to erupt, ends up with D leaving the company in 1984.”
1986
After American Express declined, Visa paid about $17 million for the founding global Olympic sponsorship rights, plus about $23 million in media for 1988.
“the price tag has gone up to $17 million just for the rights.”
2008
Visa held its IPO in March 2008, in the middle of the global financial crisis.
“The IPO happened right in the middle of the great financial crisis. It was March 2008.”
2008
Visa was always a for-profit company, structured as a non-stock membership corporation, and was not converted from a non-profit before its 2008 IPO.
“There's a myth out there that Visa was originally a non-profit and then was converted to a for-profit before the IPO in 2008. That's not true. It was always for-profit.”
2008
Before its IPO, Visa created B shares to isolate the liability from a merchant antitrust class action, protecting new A-share buyers.
“they created these B shares and they isolated all the liability from this class action suit to the B shares.”
2008
Visa's 2008 IPO was then the largest in U.S. history, raising $18 billion at about a $90 billion initial market cap, mostly selling shares owned by banks.
“It becomes the largest U.S. IPO in history up to that point. They raised $18 billion at a $90 billion initial market cap”
2021
The hosts say Visa can process about 50,000 transactions per second at peak, versus 15 to 45 for Ethereum.
“For comparison purposes, the Visa network can, at peak load, process about 50,000, 50,000 transactions per second.”
2022
U.S. merchants paid an estimated $93 billion in Visa and MasterCard credit card fees, per the Nielsen Report, up from $33 billion in 2012.
“U.S. merchants paid an estimated $93 billion in Visa and MasterCard credit card fees last year, according to the Nielsen Report”
2023
The hosts say Visa processed about $14 trillion of payment volume in the prior year.
“last year Visa processed $14 trillion of volume through their network”
2023
The hosts say Visa has about 50% net income margins on roughly $30 billion of revenue, with gross margins around 98%.
“The most shocking thing about the business is they have 50% net income margins.”
2023
A host said Visa has net income margins above 50%, which makes it an extreme example of operating leverage.
“Visa, on the other hand, is like the best operating leverage business. I mean, they have over 50% net income margins.”
2026
Bussmann says agentic payments being developed by Visa and Mastercard are probably the first agent-to-agent use case, and they depend on verifying that the agent is legitimate.
“I think the the, uh, agentic payment topic that Visa and Mastercard working is is the maybe the first one.”
Undated
Bank of America launched the card that became Visa by mailing credit cards to its customers in Fresno, California.
“they picked one town and they just mailed all of their bank of america customers in fresno california these credit cards”
Undated
Yakovenko says Visa has published a measured capacity of up to 60,000 transactions per second, though it likely handles about 5,000 per second in steady state.
“they've published that they measured it up to 60,000, but probably they handle around like 5000 at most per second, like a steady state.”
Undated
A speaker in the discussion put Visa's profit margin at about 50%, and the hosts noted they had not yet covered Visa on the show.
“Visa is 50% margin. It's astonishing. Wow. Wow. We got to do Visa at some point.”
Undated
In the hosts' example of a 2% merchant discount on a large U.S. credit card sale, about 1.6% is interchange paid to the issuing bank.
“So, that 2%, the lion's share of it is the interchange, the 1.6%, that goes to the bank that issued the card.”
Undated
A host corrected an earlier statement from the Visa episode: it was South Dakota, not North Dakota, that first changed its usury laws to support credit cards.
“it was not North Dakota, but South Dakota that first changed their usury laws to support credit cards”
Undated
Fradin says comScore's pitch worked once it offered specific answers, such as Visa's market share against Mastercard in Japan.
“we can tell you the market share for Visa versus Mastercard versus others in Japan. Turns out Visa really wants to know that.”
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