Visa 2015 Annual Report Download - page 4

headwinds and tailwinds in the short-term,
and we are lucky to be part of an industry
that continues to have strong long-term
growth potential due to the substantial
underlying growth rate for electronic
transactions.
While we know we have to deliver in the
short-term, we evaluate our own results
being careful not to get caught in the
short-term earnings trap. We always ask
ourselves if we are doing everything we
need to do to build the long-term value
of the franchise. We emphatically believe
the answer is yes, but remain paranoid in a
healthy way. We also ask whether anything
has changed about our views on growth
beyond the fiscal year. We continue to
feel great about our opportunity to drive
revenue, earnings, and EPS growth for our
shareholders and know that the potential
to displace cash remains great, and that we
have more and better tools than ever to
accomplish this.
Payments Industry Landscape
We participate in one of today’s most
dynamic industries. When innovation
occurs in the payments business, the
results are material—creating a step
change in how commerce works around
the world. The development of our
network was one such step change.
People often think of the card as the
innovation, but the physical card was
just the mechanism to access the real
innovation – the network—which provided
the ability to conduct and grow commerce
safely and easily in partnership with our
clients worldwide. Through the years,
there have been several products that
have used the network via cards: credit,
debit, commercial, and prepaid products.
Through these products, consumers
have access to funds well beyond what
they were comfortable carrying in their
pockets and have immediate access to
pre-approved credit lines. Convenience
has been an important consideration, but
the safety that cards provided was also a
great step forward. The introduction of
zero liability in many markets around the
world meant that consumers could carry
and use their cards without the risk of theft,
as is still the case with cash. Visa’s products
were, and still are, also extremely cost
effective compared to cash and checks for
merchants.
Today’s innovations hold the promise for
an equivalent step change in convenience,
safety, and growth in commerce. As
consumers and merchants evolve to
prefer digital first experiences, we are
transforming the company to embrace the
opportunity that global connectedness
provides. The innovations we are seeing
today fall into two categories. The first is
primarily around ways to access existing
payments networks and the second is
around the ability to create new payments
networks themselves. Both of these are
great opportunities for us, but also could
create risks as well. In addition, the way
in which we pursue these opportunities
in the developed, developing, and
underdeveloped parts of the world are all
very different, but all are very meaningful.