Visa held its initial public offering in 2008.
Visa's initial public offering took place in March 2008. The offering made Visa Inc. a publicly traded company and was one of the largest U.S. IPOs at the time.
Visa had previously operated as a bank-owned payment-network association rather than a conventional public corporation. Its network connects consumers, merchants, financial institutions, and governments, while banks generally issue Visa-branded cards.
Visa is a payment network, not a bank that directly provides every cardholder's account. Mastercard is its major rival, but Mastercard's separate corporate history does not change Visa's 2008 IPO date.