Visa Europe

Visa Europe is a payment technology business that enables millions of European consumers, businesses, and governments to make electronic payments. Its members are responsible for issuing cards, signing up retailers, and deciding cardholder and retailer fees. Almost 80% of Visa Europe’s business is on debit cards. There are 466 million Visa cards in Europe while 1 Euro in every 6.75 Euros spent in Europe is on a Visa card. Despite the challenging economic climate, total spend by Visa cardholders grew by 8.0% to 1.3 trillion Euros. Visa Europe employs 1,700 people on a permanent basis. It is able to respond quickly to the specific market needs of European banks and their customers, cardholders and retailers, and to meet the European Commission’s objective to create an internal market for payments. Visa Europe has invested over 1 billion Euros in technology and infrastructure over the past six years, building a European payments platform from which to deliver the next generation of payment technologies. All its transactions are based on the international EMV chip standard, which provides cryptographic security for payments today. Visa Europe is owned and operated by member banks and other payment service providers from 36 countries across Europe. Founded in 2004, it is based in London, the U.K.