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Financial
Services > Credit
Cards > Glossary
> Visa
A payment system developed initially by the Bank of America,
and now owned by over 20,000 financial institutions. In the UK,
there are four major types of Visa card available,
all of which can be used around the World:
a) Visa Credit Cards –
issued by banks such as Barclaycard, Capital One and MBNA. You
receive a bill each month, which you can either pay off partially,
or in full. Different cards have different interest rates, incentives
and payment terms.
b) Visa Debit Cards –
these are attached to your current account, and funds from spending
on debit cards are deducted within a few days of the purchase
being made. Although debit cards can be easier to budget with,
you do not have the same level of payment protection which some
credit cards can offer you. You should be particularly careful
when using debit cards for online purchases, as the fraud protections
are not as extensive. Debit cards have no “credit limit”,
as the amount you can spend is taken straight out of your current
account balance (or overdraft limit). Most Visa
credit cards have multi functions, ATM and cheque guarantee
for example.
c) Visa Charge Cards –
these are usually issued to companies to cover employees’
expense accounts, and must be paid in full each month.
d) Visa ATM (Cash machine) card – these
are issued with savings or young persons’ accounts, and
allow users to withdraw funds from thousands of cash machines
throughout the world. Visa ATM cards do not
act as a credit or debit card, and cannot be used to guarantee
cheques.
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