There are five leaders in the credit card industry today:
* Visa International- is a multinational corporation based in San Francisco, California, USA. The company operates the world’s largest retail electronic payment network, managing payments among financial institutions, merchants, consumers, businesses and government entities.
* MasterCard- is a multinational corporation based in Purchase, New York, United States. Throughout the world, its principal business is to process payments between the banks of merchants and the banks of purchasers that use its “MasterCard” brand debit and credit cards to make purchases. MasterCard Worldwide has been a publicly traded company since 2006
* American Express Card- is a diversified global financial services company that is headquartered in New York City, New York. The company is best known for its credit card, charge card, and traveler’s cheque businesses.
* Discover Card- is a major credit card, issued primarily in the United States.As of February 2006, the company announced that it would begin offering Discover Debit cards to banks, made possible by the Pulse payment system, which Discover acquired in 2005.
* Diner’s Club Card- originally founded as Diners Club, is a charge card company formed in 1949 by Frank X. McNamara, Ralph Schneider, and Matty Simmons. When it first emerged, it became the first independent credit card company in the world.
There are other check processing companies trying to penetrate the market, like Euro Card, JCB and ATM companies, but credit cards still account for over 90% of all e-commerce transactions.
Visa has been a leader in credit card innovation. This has brought them the recognition as the world’s leading credit card association, with over one billion cards being issued, and carrying over 50% of all credit card transactions conducted worldwide.
So there you have your history of credit cards. An interesting journey – one that gives you knowledge. And knowledge used brings wisdom. So you’re now qualified to make a wise decision and get on board the credit card industry train.
Tags: credit card leaders