Technology
Connecting the World
Visa operates VisaNet, the world’s largest retail electronic payments processing network, handling an average of 130 million transactions every day. In total, more than $4.3 trillion in global consumer spend is transacted on Visa-branded payment products annually. Underlying these products is a robust set of processing services that are powered by VisaNet — including core transaction processing, risk management and information-based services. These services can be tailored to individual countries or regions and serve the needs of financial institutions, governments, businesses, merchants and consumers around the globe. Every day, VisaNet connects up to 1.7 billion cards, 29 million acceptance locations, 1.5 million ATMs and more than 16,000 financial institutions.
Technology Leadership
VisaNet’s centralized processing architecture is a competitive advantage for Visa and has been a catalyst for the global migration from cash and checks to electronic forms of payment. The network’s flexibility enables Visa to meet the growing demand for electronic payments around the world by connecting new acceptance locations and extending the reach of Visa’s products and services to even the most remote areas — bringing the security, reliability and convenience of electronic payments to geographies where they don’t exist today. At the same time, VisaNet has allowed Visa to be the first to market with real-time, information-based services such as enhanced risk management, dispute processing and customized loyalty programs.
An Unrivaled Network
At the heart of VisaNet are three state-of-the art synchronized data centers on two continents, linked by 1.2 million miles of fiber-optic line. This highly redundant architecture ensures VisaNet is:
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Fast – On average, transactions are processed in less than a single second, providing merchants and financial institutions with immediate business-critical risk information, while offering a superior account holder experience.
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Secure – VisaNet employs multiple defense layers to prevent breaches, combat fraud and render compromised card data unusable. These defense layers include data encryption, network intrusion detection and neural network technologies.
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Reliable – VisaNet’s multiple redundant systems ensure near-100 percent availability. Our self-correcting network can detect problems in an instant and automatically trigger resolution processes.
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Flexible– Visa’s processing systems are designed for maximum flexibility. VisaNet supports an unrivaled lineup of payment, payment-related, risk management and information products and services. This allows Visa’s clients, in turn, to offer their customers more payment choices and easier access to — and greater control over — their finances.
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Scalable– VisaNet processes more than 92 billion transactions each year, each settled to the penny, peso, ruble and yen. On Visa’s busiest single day last year, VisaNet processed more than 200 million authorization transactions. Annual VisaNet stress tests show a network capable of processing hundreds of millions of transactions per day.
