TOP 100 COMPANIES

Founded in 1958

CEO: Ryan McInerney htps:/ visa com. www htps company:/ linkedin. / visa

Visa is one of the most instantly recognisable brands in financial services, operating one of the largest digital payment networks anywhere on the planet.

According to the company, there are currently over 4bn Visa cards in circulation, helping facilitate more than 250bn transactions a year. It’ s not just on the consumer side that Visa is an important player; the firm, which is based in California, boasts 80m merchant locations distributed throughout 200 countries and territories, demonstrating the unquestionably international scale of this payments behemoth. And the market opportunity is expanding: the company is confident it can help to convert some of the US $ 18tn in consumer spending still made in the form of cash and cheques into digital payments, helping to solidify the cashless revolution and cement Visa’ s place in global commerce.

Visa traces its roots back to 1958, when Bank of America launched the first consumer credit card

programme in the US. From there, Visa was born. The company expanded overseas in 1974 before introducing a debit card a year later. Visa’ s seismic international growth came to a head in 2007, when its regional businesses around the globe were merged to form Visa Inc before the company undertook one of the largest IPOs in corporate history a year later, in 2008. Visa’ s vision today is around uplifting consumers and merchants alike by being the best way to pay and be paid – and payments volume totalling US $ 11.6bn across the business in FY 2022 suggest that Visa is winning in that mission.

The business employs around 26,500 people and is listed on the New York Stock Exchange. It was led until February 2023 by Alfred F Kelly Jr, a stalwart of the payments industry who has been with Visa since 2016 and previously spent 23 years at American Express. But it was announced late last year that, from February onwards, Ryan McInerney, President of Visa since 2013, would begin transitioning to the role of CEO with Kelly becoming Executive Chairman.

Payments United States

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