Visa Value Stock - Dividend - Research Selection

Visa is a global payments technology company that connects consumers, merchants, financial institutions, businesses, strategic partners and government entities in more than 200 countries and territories to fast, secure and reliable electronic payments. We enable global commerce through the transfer of value and information among these participants. Our advanced transaction processing network facilitates authorization, clearing and settlement of payment transactions and enables us to provide our financial institution and merchant clients a wide range of products, platforms and value-added services.

Our vision is to be the best way to pay and be paid for everyone, everywhere. To deliver on this vision, we focus on six strategic goals:

• Evolve our client interactions to build deeper partnerships with financial institutions, merchants and new industry partners;

• Transform Visa’s technology assets to drive efficiency and enable innovation;

• Achieve success as a leading partner for digital payments comparable to what we have achieved in the physical world;

• Expand access to Visa products and services globally;

• Champion payment system security for the industry; and

• Be the employer of choice for top talent.

Visa is one of the world’s largest retail electronic payments network based on payments volume, number of transactions and number of cards in circulation.

Visa Network

Visa operates in a four party model, which includes card issuing financial institutions, acquirers and merchants. We are not a bank and do not issue cards, extend credit or set rates and fees for account holders on Visa products. In most cases, our financial institution clients are responsible for and manage account holder and merchant relationships.

We do not earn revenues from, or bear credit risk with respect to, interest or fees paid by account holders on Visa products. Interchange reimbursement fees represent a transfer of value between the financial institutions participating in our open-loop payments network. We administer the collection and remittance of interchange reimbursement fees through the settlement process, but we generally do not receive any revenue related to interchange reimbursement fees. In addition, we do not receive as revenue any of the fees that merchants are charged directly for acceptance by the acquirers.

Visa Brand

The Visa brand is one of the most well-known and valuable brands in the world. Anchored on the notion that Visa is 'everywhere you want to be,' the brand stands for acceptance, security, convenience and universality. In recognition of its strength among clients and consumers, the Visa brand is ranked highly in a number of widely recognized brand studies, including the 2016 BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands Study (#6), Interbrand’s 2016 Best Global Brands (#61) and Forbes 2016 World’s Most Valuable Brands (#30). We leverage our brand strength to deliver added value to financial institutions, merchants and other clients through compelling brand expressions, expanded products and services, and innovative marketing efforts.

Payment Security

Security is critical to maintaining trust and confidence in electronic payments. To ensure that Visa remains one of the safest ways to pay and be paid, we deploy a multi-layered security approach focused on eliminating vulnerable data from the payments environment, securing the data that remains, preventing fraud and empowering system participants to protect themselves. This approach has historically kept fraud rates low as payment volumes have grown. With commerce moving to digital channels, we are investing in new technologies and solutions in order to maintain the trust that consumers, clients and merchants place in Visa. This requires innovation, leadership and cross-industry collaboration.

Core Products

Debit: Debit cards are issued by banks to allow consumers to access funds held in their demand deposit accounts (DDAs). Debit cards allow consumers to transact without needing cash or checks and without accessing a line of credit. Visa provides the network infrastructure, product support and industry knowledge to help issuers optimize their debit offerings and help consumers and merchants efficiently transact for the purchase of goods and services, whether in person or through online or mobile channels. Across all Visa’s core products, Visa offers security protections that help prevent, detect and resolve fraud. Where applicable, Visa's zero-liability policy protects consumer cardholders from any unauthorized charges.

Credit: Credit cards are issued by banks to allow consumers to access credit to pay for goods and services. Visa does not extend credit; however, we provide combinations of card benefits and brand support, that financial institutions use to support and enable their credit products. We also partner with our clients on product design, customer segmentation and customer experience design to help financial institutions better deliver products and services that match their consumers’ needs. In fiscal 2016, we saw significant volume growth from the conversion of the USAA portfolio to Visa and opening of credit acceptance at Costco membership warehouses in the U.S.

Prepaid: Prepaid products draw funds from a designated pool of funds. Prepaid cards can be funded by individuals, corporations or governments.

Commercial: We offer a portfolio of corporate (travel) cards and purchasing card (P-card) products covering all major segments. The Commercial category is not one single product but a portfolio of products designed to bring efficiency, controls and automation to corporate and government travel and procurement processes ranging from employee travel to fully integrated, invoice-based payables. We support financial institutions, accounts payable platforms, like Bottomline and MineralTree, and technology companies as they build and expand their business-to-business platforms.