What’s the point of Visa and Mastercard if it’s always from a bank? AmEx cards are produced and processed by them only and not any other processor, so why can’t banks make credit cards without Visa or Mastercard, or vice-versa?

Question

What’s the point of Visa and Mastercard if it’s always from a bank? AmEx cards are produced and processed by them only and not any other processor, so why can’t banks make credit cards without Visa or Mastercard, or vice-versa?

In: 942

Answer 1

I used to work at visa, and to vastly oversimplify (it is eli5 after all) it’s basically like instant messaging for banks. The things that make them necessary are the little details that are hard to explain unfortunately (though handling security and verification is among those things)