Visa Inc. today announced the completion of its acquisition of Visa Europe, an autonomous company, operating in the European market using the Visa brand name.
Speaking of the acquisition, the new member of the board of directors, Gary Hoffman, stated that “combining with Visa Inc. will provide European clients with greater access to the global scale”.
Mr. Hoffman was the former CEO of Hastings Group, a UK insurance provider, for nearly four years. Prior to 2012, Hoffman was CEO of NBNK Investments, specialising in personal and business retail banking in the UK.
He has also served in various roles at Barclays Group as well as Chairperson of UK Banking making him “invaluable as we build our business in Europe”, according to Charlie Scharf, CEO of Visa Inc.
The combined, global company provides digital payment products, services, and processing to about 17,100 financial institution clients and partners, 40m retail outlets, and 3bn Visa accounts worldwide.
Visa cards and payment products enable approximately $6.8tn in global payment volume each year.
Visa and MasterCard have been subject to a number of anti-trust litigations in Europe for unfair pricing and market dominance.
