Following up on the previous item, here’s a WSJ report from October on Visa’s dominant position in the payments industry:

Visa, based in San Francisco, has built its network over more than 60 years — going back to clunky manual credit-card readers and carbon-paper copies of receipts. It accounts for around 60% of the total dollar amount of U.S. debit-card purchases and about 50% of U.S. credit-card purchases, according to the Nilson Report, a trade publication. Its closest competitor, Mastercard, accounts for around 22% and 23%, respectively. Visa’s profit totaled $17.3 billion in its 2023 fiscal year, after more than tripling in the last decade.

Amex accounts for about 19% of U.S. credit card transactions (and doesn’t support debit), and Discover is down around 3 or 4%. I really thought Visa and Mastercard had comparable market share, but it turns out Visa is far bigger, and it’s Mastercard and Amex that are around the same size.