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.