Visa Inc. is an American multinational payment card services corporation headquartered in San Francisco, California. It facilitates electronic funds transfers worldwide, most commonly through Visa-branded credit cards, debit cards and prepaid cards. Visa does not issue cards, extend credit, or set rates and fees for consumers; rather, Visa provides financial institutions with Visa-branded payment products that they then use to offer credit, debit, prepaid and cash access programs to their customers. In 2025, Visa's global network processed 257.5 billion transactions worth US$14.2 trillion. Visa was founded in 1958 by Bank of America as the BankAmericard credit card program. In response to competitor Master Charge, BofA began to license the BankAmericard program to other financial institutions in 1966. Growing friction over BofA's licensing of the program outside its own network led Dee Hock, who had joined to manage the card's Pacific Northwest rollout in 1968, to persuade the bank that BankAmericard could succeed as an independent operation.