Visa, one of the world's most valuable payment companies, held its initial public offering in 2008. Visa's shares began trading publicly on the New York Stock Exchange on March 19, 2008, under the ticker symbol V.
The offering raised about $17.9 billion, making it the largest U.S. initial public offering at the time. Visa sold roughly 446.6 million shares at $44 each. The company was already a major global payments network, but the IPO converted it from a member-owned association structure into a publicly traded corporation.
Visa does not generally issue cards directly to consumers. Instead, banks and other financial institutions issue Visa-branded cards, while Visa operates the network that helps authorize, clear, and settle transactions. This is a frequent source of confusion with card-issuing banks.
Visa's history reaches back to Bank of America's BankAmericard program, introduced in 1958. The Visa name was adopted internationally in 1976, creating a unified brand for the expanding payment network.