Ever wondered who owns Visa?
 

VISA does $1.25 trillion worth of business a year, but you can't buy one fucking share of it. Ever wonder who owns Visa? Its, so they say, a consortium of banks and financial institutions. Visa is said to be an association that links cardholders, merchants and its competing member financial institutions through the world's largest electronic payment network. Now the good news, I assume, they are planning on going IPO.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080225/...bi_ge/visa_ipo

I am wondering if this is going to change their porn policy long term, I mean, they might be getting more liberal, right? I think this is good news for us, but may be I am wrong.

Mastercard's IPO didn't change anything about their porn policy. Usually public companies have adult policies that are more strict in regards to porn due to the investors.

seems interesting, I dont really think it will change their stance on porn...

why would it change anything?

They currently accept payment for our industry. I can only see it getting worse if anything.

I don't see anyway that they are getting "more liberal". They are raising billions of dollars is what they are doing.

Good article

well said... :thumbsup

The bizarre logical leap that somehow going public = more liberal ??? makes no sense.

Wow, this looks like a good investment. Look at mastercard: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=MA&t=2y

Anyone opinions on this? I don't know much about stock

Yeah, I have a comment. You aren't looking at whether MC is a good investment. You are looking at whether MC HAS BEEN a good investment. ;-)

The main draw back for the porn industry isn't the nature of our business, it's the lack of big ticket items. The very low average charge amount makes their profit per transaction questionable.

A major consideration is that MC went public when the economy was on fire. Visa, on the other hand, will go public in a recession. Recession hurts spending. Hurt spending will hurt Visa shareprices. In fact, I think they will delay their IPO in these market conditions. If they don't, however, it's because they believe that the IPO will be so big (rumored to be amongst the biggest in US history) that current market conditions won't affect the outcome of the ipo...:2 cents:

Yeah, mastercard looked like it kicked ass. I don't see why visa wouldn't do the same thing.

They are all thieves. Their % are all way too high.
So probably it will be a good investement, if they don't get sued big time soon

im gonna buy every share i can get my hands on. sit on it for 3 months, watch it rise like a champ. top out. sell. then short the fuck outta em.

Well, it might not be all that bizarre. Many mostly privately owned companies (BMW, Wal Mart, etc.) are conservative because the main shareholders try to push their own conservative views, while many share companies are solely profit driven, and follow the motto: "whatever makes a buck".

I remember the old battle between VHS and Betamax. Beta was the better system, but lost the 80s video format war, mainly due to family influenced, personal BS.

I also think the Visa deal can't be compared to MC, Colin had a good point. Times have changed. Everything is going down the shitter right now, including the US$. Real estate crisis and mortgage crisis is just one side. The feds (taxpayers) might be able to bail out the banks out to some degree here. People have been dipping into into their equity for years, now there is no equity, so they go into CC debt. I bet in a year, or so, the word "credit card crisis" will evolve. So I believe the CC companies will have to come down from their high horse eventually, they already did in Europe.

I own 51%

What a fantastic business!

It´s fucking clever to get money from the transactions than other parts do.

It´s great for them, of course, because from the other side of the window I see people doing no that much but making a fortune from the business of others.

It makes me feel same thing when I see stats of my affiliate program and I see how much money billers are taking from me. Don´t you feel bad also?

That was a great read. Thanks Jenny.

What he said. Interesting. $1.25 trillion worth of business a year :eyecrazy

I don't feel bad paying affiliates, they are actually doing part of my job for me, ie advertising, a job I am not always able to do, because the day has only 24 hours. No, I don't feel bad about paying them, as long as they are doing a good job. It's like paying an agency or an employee. I do however, feel bad about paying the banksters from Visa and MC, especially since they started to squeeze more money out with their yearly bullshit fee (which I don't pay, due to a smart computer geek, he he).

interesting :)