Word: bankamericard
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...there must be other explanations for why the company that is perhaps the greatest enabler of American (and, increasingly, global) consumption, born in 1958 as BankAmericard and rechristened Visa in 1976, has chosen now of all times to go public. One is that Visa makes its money (a $424 million profit in the last quarter of 2007, up 70% from a year earlier) from transaction fees, not lending, so it doesn't have to worry nearly as much as banks do about people making their credit-card payments. Another is that the banks that own Visa stand to make more...
Banc One, for example, was one of the first financial institutions to see the potential in bank credit cards. In 1966 McCoy persuaded giant Bank of America to extend its California-based BankAmericard to nationwide use and to let Banc One handle the mountain of paperwork. At first Bank of America dismissed the notion that an unknown outfit from Ohio's corn belt could act as a clearing house for a national credit card system. But McCoy persisted and eventually got the job. BankAmericard evolved into Visa, and Banc One today is the third largest credit card processor...
...International, which has about 11,500 members. MasterCard (formerly Master Charge) and Visa are each carried by more than 60 million people in the U.S., but the tide of success is running with Visa. Five years ago, approximately 6 million more people carried Master Charge than Visa, then called BankAmericard. Through shrewd marketing, and a court ruling that allowed banks to issue both cards, Visa now leads...
...scene is the ragtag headquarters of a Boston underground paper. A staffer takes a kinky sex ad for the personal column over the phone, then politely asks the caller whether he wants to pay by BankAmericard or Master Charge. Question: With credit policies like that, how underground can the paper or its readers really...
...proceed to the casino to pick up chips on credit. Although prostitution used to be the quintessential cash-in-advance business, the Cottontail Ranch, a legal brothel between Las Vegas and Reno, posts signs over each of its beds advertising its willingness to take Diners Club, Master Charge or BankAmericard. Some of New York's "massage parlors" accept credit cards too -discreetly billing customers in the name of nearby restaurants that for a fee let the parlors use their card imprinters and sales-draft forms...