Visa is the credit-card network founded in 1958 as BankAmericard that uses the stock ticker V.
Bank of America launched BankAmericard in Fresno, California, in 1958. It was among the earliest large-scale general-purpose credit-card programs, allowing customers to make purchases on credit at participating merchants. The system was later licensed to banks in other regions.
The organization became Visa in 1976. Visa Inc. today operates a global payments network connecting consumers, merchants, financial institutions, and governments. It generally facilitates transactions rather than lending directly to cardholders; issuing banks manage the credit accounts and set many customer terms.
Visa shares began trading publicly in 2008 under the ticker V. A frequent misconception is that Visa itself issues every Visa card. In practice, banks and other financial institutions issue many cards, while Visa supplies the payment-network infrastructure.