Additional Privacy Information

We operate VisaNet, one of the world’s largest electronic payments networks. This allows you to use your Visa card almost everywhere in the world. Learn more about VisaNet.

When you use a Visa card (or other payment product), we receive your payment card number and other information that allows us to process your payment. We receive the date, time, location, and amount of the transaction, and information about the merchant. These data elements are referred to as “Card Transaction Data.” We may receive other financial information when processing transactions and providing services to our clients.

We use and disclose Card Transaction Data to enable your payments and as needed to:

• Operate Visa’s electronic payments networks, including for core financial processing activities such as authorisation, clearing and settlement of transactions, and for related purposes, such as authentication, tokenization, dispute resolution, fraud prevention, and security
• Provide services to our clients. For example, if you have enrolled in an issuer or merchant loyalty programme, we will process Card Transaction Data to calculate your rewards and provide targeted offers to you from the client – learn more in the Loyalty & Rewards section of this page.
• Understand how you and others use our products, for analytics and modelling, to create business intelligence and insights and to understand economic trends
• Generate de-personalised, de-identified, anonymised or aggregated datasets, which are used for product development and delivery of consulting services to clients – learn more in the Visa Products and Services section of this page.
• Support for your everyday business needs, such as account management, quality control, website administration, business continuity and disaster recovery, security and fraud prevention, corporate governance, reporting and legal compliance

Your Choices

We appreciate that you have a choice about which payment products to carry and use. Our goal is to give you confidence to choose Visa because of our commitment to your privacy and security. You may contact us at any time with questions about our privacy practices.

In the U.S., the Card Transaction Data that Visa collects when it operates its payment networks is regulated by existing federal financial privacy laws. Outside the U.S., the information is protected by various international data protection laws.

Visa offers individuals the ability to opt out of having their Card Transaction Data used to create certain data products. As described in our Global Privacy Notice, in some countries, Visa uses Card Transaction Data to generate data products that companies use to improve their marketing programmes and identify interested consumers. These products do not contain any personal information, but they provide aggregated insights that support targeted marketing. If you do not want us to use your Card Transaction Data to generate these products, click here to opt out. Visa does not offer individuals the ability to opt out of having their Card Transaction Data used to create fraud, security and similar non-marketing products.

If your payment card offers cashback or other rewards, or if you otherwise enrol in a cashback or loyalty programme, we may process your Card Transaction Data as needed to enable your card issuer or programme sponsor to provide the reward.

For example, a Retailer and a Bank may offer a Retailer-Branded Cashback Visa card (issued by Bank) that rewards you with 2% cashback on purchases at Retailer and 1% cashback on groceries. When you apply for this card, you agree to the Bank’s terms regarding how your rewards are calculated. The Bank then contracts with Visa to have Visa analyse the Card Transaction Data in order to identify transactions that are eligible for the reward and to calculate the amount of cashback earned for each statement period. In this case, Visa acts as a service provider for your card issuer.  

Some companies operate rewards networks that allow you to enrol your payment cards in order to receive cashback, targeted offers, or other rewards in their networks. When you enrol, you are asked to consent to allowing Visa and other payments networks to process Card Transaction Data for the enrolled payment card, as needed, to calculate cashback and provide targeted card-linked offers. Visa operates as a service provider to the rewards programme company.

Your Choices

Use of cashback payment cards and participation in rewards and loyalty programmes are fully voluntary. As a cardholder, you can choose to participate or not in these types of programmes.

Visa acts as a service provider (also called a data processor) when it provides services to card issuers and other companies for cashback and loyalty programmes.  This means that we only process your information as instructed by our clients to enable the programme and for other appropriate purposes, such as recordkeeping and compliance. Our clients provide you with appropriate privacy notices when you enrol in these programmes (or apply for cashback cards) and obtain your consent for our processing of the Card Transaction Data. 

If you have questions about how your card issuer or a rewards network handles your personal information, please check the privacy notices provided by these companies and contact them directly for assistance with your privacy requests.

Visa offers consumers many ways to engage with us.  For example, you may enrol in secure checkout programmes (such as Visa) or biometric payment programmes, or you may contact us, sign up to receive messages from us, or participate in a Visa sponsored event or promotion.  In each case, we will collect personal information as needed to provide the information or services that you request.

We use and disclose the information you give us as needed to:

• Provide you with the products, services, programmes, offers, or information you request from Visa, and for related purposes such as determining eligibility and customer service
• Administer surveys, loyalty programmes, lotteries, contests, and events
• Based on your choices, deliver marketing communications, personalised offers and interest-based ads to you, and
• Support for your everyday business needs, such as account management, quality control, website administration, business continuity and disaster recovery, security and fraud prevention, corporate governance, reporting and legal compliance

Please read the privacy notices provided with each programme or platform for additional disclosures that may apply.

Your Choices

Visa offers you different choices about how we use your information and communicate with you.

• In most cases, you can limit the information you provide to Visa. Participation in our programmes and promotions is voluntary. If you have enrolled in a programme, you can opt out at any time. 
• If you have created an account with us online, you can delete that account by logging in and following the instructions provided.
• Some programmes, including Visa’s secure checkout solutions (such as Visa) Click to Pay, enable you to access and update your personal information at any time when you log in to your account. You can also use the Privacy Rights section on this page to exercise your access and deletion rights.
• You can limit the communications that Visa sends to you. To opt out of marketing emails, simply click the link labelled “unsubscribe” at the bottom of any marketing email we send you. To revoke permissions that you may have given to send text messages, text STOP in response to any message. Please note that even if you opt out of marketing emails, we may still need to contact you with important transactional information about your account. For example, even if you opt out of emails, we may still send you activity confirmations or fraud alerts.
• You can contact us at any time for assistance.

When you visit our website, use our mobile applications, or engage with our emails and online ads, we may collect information by automated means, using technologies such as cookies, pixel tags, browser analysis tools, server logs, and web beacons.

In some cases, the information we collect is only used in a non-identifiable way. For example, we use the information we collect about all website users to optimise our websites and to understand website traffic patterns. We do not use this information to profile you or target our ads. 

In other cases, we may use the information in an identifiable way. For example, we may authenticate you or your device, deliver personalised content, or use the information for analytics, fraud detection and security. We may also use the information to target the ads we display to you online. Our Cookie Notice provides more information about our online data collection technologies and your choices.

As described in our Cookie Notice, we have relationships with third parties that place advertisements on our website and other websites. These third parties may track your device across different websites and applications. Based on your settings, they may place cookies or tags on your computer when you visit our website so that they can display targeted advertisements to you on other websites. The data that these companies collect is subject to their own privacy policies.  

Our websites may enable you to interact with us and others via social media platforms. We collect information from these platforms as permitted by the sites’ legal terms. We may also display interest-based ads to you when you are using these platforms. The platforms allow us to personalise the ads that we display to you, and they may gain insights about individuals who respond to the ads we serve.

Your Choices

For websites in the United States and Europe, Visa provides you with the ability to manage cookies that are not essential to display our website by clicking the Cookie Notice link in the footer of this site. For other locations, please refer to our Cookie Notice for details on how to manage cookies.

Visa shares data collected via cookies and other technologies with its service providers, which use the data collected by cookies and similar means to help us with our online advertising programmes, and other third-parties who assist with our information technology and security programmes, such as companies providing network security services who retain information on malware threats detected.

Our Cookie Notice contains information about how to manage cookies in many popular browsers as well as how to manage other types of cookies. It also contains useful information about protecting your privacy online, such as how to reset device advertising identifiers and how to take advantage of industry-sponsored privacy programmes.

At Visa, we believe that we have a responsibility to use the data entrusted to us to improve the security and convenience of electronic payments. Our commitment to privacy underlies our product and service development process.

When you use a Visa card (or other payment product), we receive your payment card number and other information that allows us to process your payment. We receive the date, time, location and amount of the transaction, and information about the merchant. These data elements are referred to as “Card Transaction Data.”  You can learn more about how Visa handles this in the Payment Card Data section of this page.

We primarily use Card Transaction Data to facilitate purchases and protect consumers against fraud and identity theft. For example, we automatically analyse every transaction in real-time to help ensure the actual cardholder is making the transaction. If you have ever received a call or message from your bank alerting you to a suspicious transaction, this is an example of our data-based fraud analysis in action.

We also use Card Transaction Data to help card issuer and merchants better meet their customers’ needs and grow their businesses. These data-driven services help these companies make better business decisions and provide more convenience to cardholders in four ways:

• Financial Inclusion – For people with new or limited credit histories, obtaining a credit card can be challenging because traditional credit rating bureaus measure prior credit activities. Subject to applicable law, we can use debit card transaction data to help expand access to affordable and responsible credit options for consumers who might otherwise be declined. 
• Customer Convenience – We use merchant data, purchase history, and other data elements to deliver Value-Added Services like searching for Visa-accepting merchants or conducting identity checks in the background of a transaction so you will not need to enter additional authentication information (e.g. security code or password).
• Offers and Promotions – Consumers can receive relevant and money-saving offers and promotions that are tailored to what they want or need. We use insights from past purchases to help businesses know their customers better, such as when they are likely to travel internationally or when to provide coupons or offers.
• Business Performance – By using trend aggregated analysis and benchmarking data, businesses can evaluate their payment, location, or marketing services to uncover efficiencies, opportunities, and better ways to serve their customers. For example, transaction data can help merchants understand where to open new shops. We also monitor transaction trends to identify if a merchant may be experiencing fraud.

Your Choices

Development of data products is essential to our mission to create the most convenient, secure and privacy-protective payments network. We appreciate that you have a choice about which payment products to carry and use. Our goal is to give you confidence to choose Visa because of our commitment to your privacy and security. You may contact us at any time with questions about our privacy practices.

In the United States, the Card Transaction Data that Visa collects when it operates its payment networks is regulated by existing federal financial privacy laws. Outside the United States, the information is protected by various international data protection laws. We comply with all the laws that regulate our use of Card Transaction Data. 

Visa offers individuals the ability to opt out of having their Card Transaction Data used to create certain data products. As described in our Global Privacy Notice, in some countries, Visa uses Card Transaction Data to generate data products that companies use to improve their marketing programmes and identify interested consumers. These products do not contain any personal information, but they provide aggregated insights that support targeted marketing. If you do not want us to use your Card Transaction Data to generate these products, click here to opt out. Visa does not offer individuals the ability to opt out of having their Card Transaction Data used to create fraud, security and similar non-marketing products.