Nearly all Visa transactions worldwide are processed through the company’s directly operated VisaNet at one of four secure data centers, located in Ashburn, Virginia; Highlands Ranch, Colorado; London, England; and Singapore. These facilities are heavily secured against natural disasters, crime, and terrorism; can operate independently of each other and from external utilities if necessary; and can handle up to 30,000 simultaneous transactions and up to 100 billion computations every second.
The company’s milestones:
– In 1958 – Bank of America launches BankAmericard, the first card with a ”revolving credit” feature.
– By May 1961 – The BankAmericard program became profitable for the first time.
– In 1966 – To grow the card program beyond their home state, Bank of America decided to franchise the BankAmericard to select banks all over the world.
– In 1970 – Bank of America passed control of BankAmericard to the various BankAmericard issuer banks which comprised the newly-established NBI, or National BankAmericard, Inc.
– In 1973 – National BankAmericard launches the first electronic authorization system, followed by an electronic clearing and settlement system.
– In 1975 – The first debit card is launched.
– In 1976 – BankAmericard becomes Visa—a name that sounds the same in all languages.
– In 1979 – The first Visa Travelers Cheques are issued in four currencies.
– In 1983 – Visa launches an automated teller machine (ATM) network, providing 24-hour “anytime, anywhere” cash around the world.
– In 1986 – Visa joined with the PLUS ATM network in 1986, offering its cardholders easy access to cash. Visa also develops multiple-currency clearing and settlement in 21 currencies.
– In 1993 – Visa is the first to apply state-of-the-art neutral network technologies to payments aiming to reduce card fraud.
– In 1995 – Visa check card debuts and Visa co-creates EMV, an industry chip card specification that ensures interoperability between all chip-enabled cards and terminals.
– In 2001 – Visa reaches 1 billion issued cards and launches the Zero Liability policy, which protects cardholders from liability for fraudulent charges.
– In 2004 – Visa introduces Advanced Authorization, which analyzes and assigns a risk score to every Visa transaction in real-time.
– On October 11, 2006 – Visa announced that some of its businesses would be merged and become a publicly traded company, Visa Inc.
– In 2007 – Visa forms a global corporation, while Visa Europe remains member-owned.
– In 2009 – Visa’s first global ad campaign celebrates how people everywhere need a better way to pay for the things they need and want.
– In 2021 – Visa announced the acceptance of stable coin USDC to settle transactions on its network
According to en.wikipedia.org; zippia.com. Source of photo: internet
