[natroniks]

Knowing about the corporate history of these mega-corporations is helpful to understand their ubiquity today. Mastercard came out of Bank of America's innovative "Master Charge" business. Visa was formed from a consortium of many banks. Kinda parallel to how Venmo is owned by one financial firm while Zelle is owned by a consortium (perhaps one day each spins out to become the next gen MA nad V). To this day, Visa stock has a 96% institutional ownership, far higher than the avg megacap. Mastercard has over 75% inst ownership. The structural importance of these companies today goes back to their respective origins in the banks themselves.