Visa uses the stock ticker V and began as BankAmericard before becoming Visa.
Bank of America launched BankAmericard in 1958 as a general-purpose credit card program. The program was licensed to banks in other countries and gradually developed into an international payment network. In 1976, the participating organizations adopted the name Visa.
Visa Inc. became a public company in 2008 in one of the largest U.S. initial public offerings at the time. Its network connects consumers, merchants, financial institutions, and payment processors, but Visa generally does not issue cards or lend directly to cardholders; those functions are usually handled by banks.
The ticker V is a compact reference to Visa's name. Visa is therefore different from banks whose cards carry the Visa brand and from Mastercard, which operates a separate payment network.