Visa USA Upgrading Logo

SAN FRANCISCO – The Visa logo, one of the most recognized around the world, is undergoing a change. The association said the new logo will help it cross barriers into new forms of media such as the Internet, mobile phones and other hand held devices. The new brand will also allow for a new card format that will complement the issuer’s own brand, the association said. The well-known Visa dove hologram on the front of the card will be moved to the back and be integrated with the magnetic stripe, making card counterfeiting more difficult while allowing a larger part of the front of the card to be used for new issuer designs or communication. “Over the last several years the scope of our business has increased considerably. We were simply a consumer credit card company. Today, debit and prepaid products, commercial payment solutions and processing and authentication services are major components of our business,” said Christopher Rodrigues, CEO of Visa International. “We need to evolve the way the brand is used to enable consumers and merchants to distinguish between different Visa products and services while continuing to trust Visa to enable them to make efficient secure payments anywhere in the world. The new logo will eventually appear everywhere, from merchant locations to cards to Web sites, the association said.