Founded in 1958 by Dee Hock, Visa Inc. is the world’s largest multinational financial service provider, which facilitates electronic funds, transfer through Credit and Debit Cards.
Visa Inc. is not an entity that provides or authorises credit cards, transactional fees and rates; Visa just provides the electronic infrastructure that facilitates easier electronic transactions. All such facilitations done by Visa are based on the use of Visa authorized Credit or Debit cards.
MasterCard and American Express happen to be the two biggest competition of Visa. According to market share, Visa facilitates almost three times the transaction MasterCard does and around 14 times the transactions done by American Express. The data certainly states Visa Inc. is as the biggest electronic pay facilitator.
Nilson Report published in 2015 stated that Visa Inc. has processed 100 billion transactions till date and has transferred almost 6.8 Trillion USD.
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Products in the marketing mix of Visa
Before Visa came to its existence, credit cards were not dynamic, they used to be applications issued by a user to Bank seeking payment for the merchant/shop they have made a purchase at but with Visa coming into the scene, the game changed and it changed for better.
Post Visa introduction, people are able to pay merchants/shops instantly instead of issuing an application seeking banks to pay them. Credit Cards found a new meaning and the nature of transactions turned dynamic.
The basic products of Visa Inc. are
- Payment Systems
- Credit Cards
The popularity of Payment Systems by Visa forced the think tank behind the brand to come up with Credit Cards that actually benefits the users. Visa Credit Cards are powerful and have some exquisite perks in comparison to other cards issued by listed banks.
Price in the marketing mix of Visa
The revenue model followed by Visa and other payment system providers like MasterCard and American Express has no direct relationship with merchant or users. Visa gets into collaboration with regular and payment banks and charges a fee for every transaction made.
The amount of fee charged by Visa depends on the region, bank type and a number of transactions made. Basically, the fee charged is variable and is dependent upon a lot of factors. But when compared with mastercard, it can be said that Visa has a competitive pricing as these two companies – Visa and Mastercard literally dominate the plastic card industry.
Place in the marketing mix of Visa
Visa is a global payment system that facilitates more than a billion transactions every year. Visa functions in all Asia, South America, North America and Europe; Antarctica is the only continental exception; whereas Visa Europe follows a different paradigm and requires a different kind of paperwork for integration of this payment system.
Each and every transaction is done through Visa Payment System passes through VisaNet to two distinct secure facilities, which are:
- Operations Center East: This secure facility is located in Washington D.C
- Operations Centre Central: Located at a secure place in Colorado
These distinct secure facilities are provided with the best security against natural disasters, cyber crime or any other lethal attack. These distinct facilities can function without establishing any relation with each other. Each of these facilities can handle up to 30,000 transactions simultaneously.
Every transaction that gets accepted is scrutinised under varied parameters like customer’s spending habit, location, availability of secure server and a check for bogus transactions.
Promotions in the marketing mix of Visa
Visa is basically a Business-to-Business kind of enterprise; with no direct relation with users and merchants, there’s no need for marketing and PR. However, to create trust in consumers, Visa does take part in consumer advertising from time to time.
A Visa powered card is not just a card but also a power to accomplish greater things using the attributes of money. Enterprises can always get in touch with banks and other money lending institutions through the defined paradigms and introduce their services. Visa Inc. works with almost every existing bank in the world that issues credit and debit cards.
