What is visa card and for what it is used?

Answer 1

Visa is a brand of a network for accepting cards. A merchant may decide to accept Visa, and the customer can pay with his card, which might be a credit card issued by a bank (the bank is loaning the money to the customer, and paying the merchant). It could be a debit card (also called a check card, as the bank deducts the money from the customer's checking account, then pays the merchant). Or it could be a gift card, where the money is paid to the card issuer (usually a bank) in advance, then the issuer pays the merchant and deducts the amount from the available balance.

In each case, the Visa network helps facilitate the transaction between the merchant's processing company and the customer's bank. There is also a MasterCard network (which now the credit card processing companies typically bundle into a Visa/MasterCard acceptance). There is a Discover/Novus network as well as American Express, and some other lesser used ones such as CarteBlanche, Diners Club, and JCB. For each of those, the merchant needs to have an account set up with the network to be able to accept the card with that logo.