Visa 2015 Annual Report Download - page 26

wide variety of issues, including mobile payment transactions, money transfer, identity theft, account
management guidelines, privacy, disclosure rules, security and marketing that could affect our financial
institution clients directly. These new requirements and developments may affect our financial
institution clients’ ability to offer existing products and services, extend credit via payment cards and
products, and offer new types of payment programs, which could decrease our transaction volumes
and revenues.
Available Information
We are subject to the reporting requirements of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended
(the “Exchange Act”) and its rules and regulations. The Exchange Act requires us to file periodic
reports, proxy statements and other information with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
(the “SEC”). Copies of these reports, proxy statements and other information can be viewed at
http://www.sec.gov or at the SEC Public Reference Room at 100 F Street, NE, Washington, D.C.
20549. Information on the operation of the Public Reference Room may be obtained by calling the
SEC at 1-800-SEC-0330.
Our corporate website is accessible at http://corporate.visa.com. We make available, free of
charge, on our investor relations website at http://investor.visa.com our annual reports on Form 10-K,
our quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, our current reports on Form 8-K and any amendments to those
reports as soon as reasonably practicable after they are electronically filed with, or furnished to, the
SEC. We also may include supplemental financial information on our investor relations website at
http://investor.visa.com and may use this website as a means of disclosing material, non-public
information and for complying with our disclosure obligations under Regulation FD. Accordingly,
investors should monitor such portions of our investor relations website, in addition to following SEC
filings and publicly available conference calls. The information contained on our corporate website,
including the information contained on our investor relations website, is not incorporated by reference
into this report or any other report filed with, or furnished to, the SEC.
ITEM 1A. Risk Factors
Regulatory Risks
Additional regulation of interchange reimbursement rates may reduce our transaction volumes
and harm our overall business.
We generally do not receive any revenue related to interchange reimbursement fees in a purchase
transaction as those fees are paid by the acquirers to the issuers. They are, however, a factor on which
we compete with other payments providers and are therefore an important determinant of the volume
of transactions we process. Consequently, changes to these fees can substantially affect our revenues
and overall payments volume.
We have historically set default interchange reimbursement rates in the U.S. and many other
geographies. Interchange reimbursement rates, our operating rules and related practices have become
subject to continued or increased government regulation globally, and regulatory authorities and
central banks in a number of jurisdictions have reviewed or are reviewing these rates and practices.
When we cannot set default interchange reimbursement rates at optimal levels, issuers and
acquirers may find our payments system less attractive. It may increase the attractiveness of other
payments systems like competitors’ closed-loop payments systems with direct connections to both
merchants and consumers. In addition, as a result of such regulations, we believe some issuers are
charging new or higher fees to consumers. In certain instances,some acquirers elect to charge higher
discount rates to merchants, regardless of the Visa interchange reimbursement rate, causing
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