[emaercklein]

Visa is a payment network, not an issuer (like Discover or AMEX). They don't issue credit cards to consumers, they just act as the underlying technology in the five-party model connecting merchants to consumers and their banks and the merchant's bank. Chargebacks are disputed with the issuing bank, not Visa...

[eldavido]

I know this. But Visa sets the rules of the game. They make the rules, everyone else participates.

Visa isn't really a technology company. That's how they started, but these days, I think of them as more of a "facilitation platform" responsible for getting everyone into one legally sound network and defining common standards for things, everything from data interchange to how long customers have to request chargebacks, how long banks have to respond, what are valid reasons for revoking an authorization, etc.