[R]10:15AM New York – Visa stock offers at $68 and trades down to $59.[/R]

Visa, the largest payment card processing network priced shares at $44 per share. The stock is expected to open between $65 and $67.

Visa is likely to begin trading before 10:30AM as institutional and retail investors gear for the largest public offering in the U.S.

Volatile stock market and generally declining markets around the world has put most public offerings in the U.S. on hold. For the year so far 15 companies have been priced and raised compared to 48 companies in 2007.

The $17.9 billion offering, long awaited by investors on the success of second largest processor MasterCard, is likely to be one of the most successful offering in 208.

Visa Canda, Visa International, and Visa USA have been merged into a newly listed company Visa Inc and will trade under the symbol V. Visa Europe will not be part of this offering.

Goldman Sachs along with Citigroup and Bank of America are part of underwriting team of 13 bankers handling this largest offering in the U.S. Before this deal, AT&T Wireless was the largest offering that raised $10.6 billion at the height of telecom bubble in the year 2000.

MasterCard, the second largest processor of credit and debit charge payments offered 61 million shares and was priced at $39 per share and raised $2.45 billion on May 24, 2006. Since then the stock has surged 400% and currently trades around $200 price.

Visa, generates more than twice the revenue than MasterCard and its member banks have issued 1.4 billion charge cards carrying its logo. In twelve months ending on March 31, 2007, card holders spent $3.3 trillion through the electronic network.

MasterCard and Visa are less dependent on the customer payment risk, a key concern of investors in the slowing consumer spending and rising credit card defaults environment in the U.S.

American Express owns the third largest payment processing network but also has debt collection risks as its card holders have account directly with the payment processor. Amex in the latest quarter has taken a significant charge to cover such losses. Visa and MasterCard holders have account with a bank issuing a card with either company logos and only process electronic payment for a fee.

Visa Europe is not part of this offering and will remain as an independent organization owned by member firms in Europe.

Of the proceeds raised by Visa, $3 billion will be set aside to pay for ongoing legal negotiations and $10 billion will be used to payback member bank firms. The rest of the proceeds will be used for general corporate purposes.

At the end of 2007, Visa processed charges for $3.23 trillion for 44 billion transactions from 1.4 billion cards. During the same period, MasterCard processed $1.9 trillion for 23.4 billion transactions from 817 million cards. American Express processed $562 billion for 4.5 billion transactions from 78 million cards. Discover has issued 57 million cards and Diners Club network has 7 million cards under its logo.