Interesting piece highlighting two developments at Visa: (1) the potentially unsustainable relationship with PayPal, and (2) their plans to potentially acquire Visa Europe
Roughly half of transactions moving across PayPal are with general cards, of which Visa is again half, and that remains a big business. But the CEO also noted that PayPal uses Visa transactions as a vein to “mine from” and possibly disintermediate the relationship between Visa and clients and is something that is “not sustainable for the long term.” One bit of news — or perhaps non-news? — comes through the continued discussions with Visa Europe. Visa said last night it is in talks about combining the two companies, talks driven by “compelling logic … to consummate a business transaction.” As had been reported earlier this year, Visa had been looking over the idea of buying its former unit for as much as $20 billion, and talks in May had been rumored to have been in the early stages.