Parties to Visa Transactions

A cardholder :  is an authorized user of Visa payment cards or other Visa payment
products.
A merchant : is any business entity that is authorized to accept Visa cards for the
payment of goods and services.
An acquirer : is a financial institution that contracts with merchants to accept
Visa cards for payment of good and services. An acquirer may also contract with
third party processors to provide processing services.
A card issuer : is a financial institution that maintains the Visa cardholder
relationship. It issues Visa cards and contracts with its cardholders for billing
and payment of transactions.
Visa Inc. : is a publicly-traded corporation that works with financial institutions
that issue Visa cards (card issuers) and/or sign merchants to accept Visa cards
for payment of goods and services (acquirers). Visa provides card products,
promotes the Visa brand, and establishes the rules and regulations governing
participation in Visa programs. Visa also operates the world’s largest retail
electronic payments network to facilitate the flow of transactions between
acquirers and card issuers.
VisaNet® is part of Visa’s retail electronic payment system. It is a collection of
systems that includes:
• An authorization service through which card issuers can approve or decline
individual Visa card transactions.
• A clearing and settlement service that processes transactions electronically
between acquirers and card issuers to ensure that:
          – Visa transaction information moves from acquirers to card issuers for
             posting to cardholders’ accounts.
          – Payment for Visa transactions moves from card issuers to acquirers to be
             credited to the merchant accounts.