Acquired · Nov 26Visa
Led Visa in 1976 with 7,400 banks and 37 million cardholders versus Visa's 7,000 and 31 million, then fell behind after Visa's rebrand. It went public without resolving litigation uncertainty, and its IPO went badly.
Tips
- The 1977 name change to Visa set off an arms race among banks that pushed it past MasterCard▶ 1:36:30In one year the number of member banks grew 20% and active cardholders grew 45%.
- Visa isolated antitrust liability in B shares and had a clean 2008 IPO while MasterCard's stumbled▶ 2:27:10It was the largest US IPO in history up to that point, and helped banks through the financial crisis.
- Dee Hock warned that letting banks join both networks would freeze competition between Visa and MasterCard▶ 1:41:00Banks multi-home on both networks and the two share the same features and prices.
