Visa 2010 Annual Report Download - page 8

Table of Contents
• "pay before" cards, such as prepaid cards, which are pre-funded up to a certain monetary value.
Primary global general purpose card brands include Visa, MasterCard, American Express, JCB and Discover/Diners Club. While these brands—
including Visa—were historically associated with consumer credit or charge cards in the United States and other major international markets, Visa and others
have, over time, broadened their offerings to include debit, ATM, prepaid and commercial cards.
Our Core Operations
We derive revenues primarily from fees paid by our clients based on payments volume, transactions that we process and other related services we
provide. Our clients deliver Visa products and payment services to consumers and merchants based on product platforms we define and manage. Payments
network management is a core part of our operations, as it ensures that our payments system provides a safe, efficient, consistent and interoperable service to
cardholders, merchants and financial institutions worldwide.
Transaction Processing Services
Processing Infrastructure
We own and operate VisaNet, which consists of multiple synchronized processing centers, including a new east coast data center in the United States.
In addition, Visa Europe operates one processing center in the United Kingdom, which is part of our synchronized system in accordance with the terms of our
Framework Agreement with Visa Europe. These centers are linked by a global telecommunications network and are engineered for redundancy. Intelligent
access points around the world complete our global processing infrastructure and enable merchants and financial institutions worldwide to access our core
processing and value-added services.
VisaNet is built on a centralized architecture, enabling us to view and analyze each authorization transaction we process in real time and to provide
value-added information, such as risk scoring or loyalty applications, while the transaction data is being routed through our system.
CyberSource, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Visa Inc., operates multiple data centers in the United States and internationally. These secure data center
facilities allow for high availability transaction services and connectivity to the Internet, clients and processing partners.
Core Processing Services
Our core processing services involve the routing of payment information and related data to facilitate the authorization, clearing and settlement of
transactions between Visa issuers and acquirers. In addition, we offer a range of value-added processing services to support our clients' Visa programs and to
promote the growth and security of the Visa payments network.
Authorization is the process of approving or declining a transaction before a purchase is finalized or cash is disbursed. Clearing is the process of
delivering final transaction data from an acquirer to an issuer for posting to the cardholder's account, the calculation of certain fees and charges that apply to
the issuer and acquirer involved in the transaction, and the conversion of transaction amounts to the appropriate settlement currencies. Settlement is the
process of calculating, determining, reporting and transferring the net financial position of our issuers and acquirers for all transactions that are cleared.
The issuer and acquirer involved in a typical Visa transaction perform additional functions that we do not generally perform or monitor. For example,
the acquirer credits the merchant's account for the
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