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VISA
The largest credit card company in the world, Visa began in 1958 as the BankAmericard program offered by
Bank of America. The program, launched first in California, was the first to offer its customers
"revolving credit" - a continuous loan that remains even if customers pay off only a fraction of their balance.
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BankAmericard was the brainchild of a bank manager who felt it would take less time to centralize billing
for small purchases and loans, rather than have workers prepare bills for each one.
The BankAmericard spread outside of California in 1965 when Bank of America began signing licensing
agreements with other banks. Not only did the BankAmericard spread wide and fast through out the United
States, it did so in other countries – Canada, France and the UK. In 1970, Bank of America handed over
control of the program to a consortium of financial institutions. In 1976, BankAmericard changed its name
to Visa to better reflect its growing international operations.
By 2006, according to the Neilson Report, Visa had grown to encompass 44 per cent of the credit card market
in the U.S. and has begun using chip technology in its European cards. The company finally went public in
2008.
Today VISA offers debit cards, credit cards, prepaid credit cards and operate the PLUS automated teller
machine network and the Interlink EFTPOS point of sale network.
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