What Visa is
Visa is one of the world's leaders in digital payments, best known for its card network. Through VisaNet, a merchant's acquirer presents each transaction to Visa, which sends it to the card's issuer for approval and then clears and settles it between the two. Visa itself is not a financial institution and does not issue cards or extend credit: the banks and licensed companies it works with do.
Visa began as BankAmericard in 1958, took the Visa name in 1976 and is headquartered in San Francisco. Next to the network, the Visa Token Service replaces card numbers with tokens for wallets, wearables and online payments, and Visa Secure is its EMV 3-D Secure programme. It is one of the two networks in our card issuing and card acquiring modules, next to Mastercard.
What it does in your platform
Card issuing
Your cards carry the Visa brand, issued by your processor under your BIN sponsor's agreement with Visa or your own membership. Visa tokens put them into Apple Pay and Google Pay, and the module answers every authorisation from your ledger and your rules.
Card acquiring
Visa cards and wallets tapped on your merchants' phones reach the card's issuer over VisaNet through your acquirer, which settles the money back to the merchant under Visa's rules. Those rules also ask the acquirer to register a tap-to-phone solution with Visa and have it approved before launch.
How the connection works
The modules do not connect to Visa directly: your issuer processor and your acquirer do, and the modules connect to them. Here is one payment, followed from both ends.
A card is issued
Your processor creates a Visa card on your BIN. When the customer adds it to a phone wallet, the Visa Token Service gives that device a token in place of the card number.
The phone is tapped
The customer pays at a merchant using your SoftPOS app. The merchant's phone reads the wallet in a certified kernel, and the payment goes to your acquirer.
Visa routes it
The acquirer presents the transaction to Visa over VisaNet, and Visa sends it on to the processor of the card's issuer.
The issuer side decides
The processor asks the card issuing module, which approves or declines from the ledger, the limits and your fraud rules, and the answer travels back the same way.
Clearing and settlement
Visa clears the transaction and settles it between the issuer's side and the acquirer, and the acquirer pays the merchant on its schedule. Both modules match it to the ledger.
Next to other networks
Visa and Mastercard sit side by side in both modules. Each card programme is issued on one network, chosen with your BIN sponsor and your processor, and you can run programmes on both: the app, the controls and the ledger are the same for every card.
On the acceptance side, merchants take Visa and Mastercard through the same acquirer, the same app and the same settlement reports, so nothing changes for them whichever card a customer taps.
When Visa fits best
A strong fit when
- Your BIN sponsor and processor offer Visa programmes in the markets you launch in.
- You want a card your customers can use wherever Visa is accepted, at home and abroad.
- You plan wallet payments from day one, with Visa tokens behind Apple Pay and Google Pay.
Also worth a look
- Mastercard, if your sponsor's or processor's offer for your programme is stronger on that network.
- Both networks, as separate programmes, if you serve different markets or kinds of customer.
How we get you live
The partners
We help you choose and set up the BIN sponsor, the issuer processor and the acquirer that give you Visa access in your markets.
The programme
We prepare the card programme documents with you for your sponsor's and Visa's approvals, which set the timeline for your first cards.
Tokens and wallets
We enable Visa tokens through your processor, so cards can go into Apple Pay and Google Pay from the first day.
A full test run
Cards, payments, refunds and disputes run end to end in your partners' test environments before the first live card or merchant.
