Visa became the largest U.S. IPO at the time when it went public in 2008.
Visa completed its initial public offering in March 2008, raising approximately $17.9 billion. The offering was the largest IPO in U.S. history at that time. Visa’s shares began trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker V.
Visa operates a global electronic-payments network connecting consumers, merchants, financial institutions, and governments. It generally does not issue cards or extend most of the credit behind them; banks and other financial institutions typically perform those roles. Visa instead processes and routes payment transactions through its network.
Visa is often compared with Mastercard because both operate large card-payment networks. They are separate companies, and neither is a bank in the ordinary sense. Their business models differ from American Express, which combines a payment network with card issuing and merchant-acquiring activities.