Visa Credit Cards: What You Need to Know
There are thousands of different Visa credit cards, each with its own credit limit, fees, and special offers. When you apply for a Visa credit card, most of the important details are actually determined by the bank backing the card (also known as the card-issuing bank). Here's what you should know about credit cards that carry the Visa logo.
There are a few relatively small benefits of having a Visa credit card compared to a card on a competing credit card network.
Visa and Mastercard are known as "open-loop networks" who partner with banks. The banks do the actual lending, whereas Visa and Mastercard provide the "pipes" on which payments flow from one party to another. In contrast, American Express and Discover are so-called "closed-loop networks," which means they serve as the network for payments as well as the bank that supplies the financing to cardholders.
Source: Fool.com
