It's typical to find the names of the credit cards a business establishment accepts posted on the door, the front window, and by the cash register. And in most cases, if only two cards are accepted, the two are MasterCard and VISA.

MasterCard

MasterCard is a brand of debit and credit card offered by MasterCard Worldwide. It grew out of the Interbank Card Association (ICA), an organization founded in 1966. This US-based company began to expand to form a global network in 1968, a year before it acquired the rights to the name and trademark interlocked circles of "Master Charge." The year 1968 was also the year in which MasterCard began its expansion to an international presence, reaching Europe, Japan, and Mexico.

The card was renamed to MasterCard in 1979, keeping the connection to the older world while also forging a new brand. Some important technical innovations followed. The MagStripe became standard in 1974, and the industry-leading security hologram was introduced in 1983.

Also in the 1980s, MasterCard offered the first payment card in the People's Republic of China. After acquiring an interest in EuroCard, the predecessor of Europay International, as well as the Cirrus ® ATM network, MasterCard joined Europay in introducing the first online point-of-sale debit network, called Maestro® in 1991.

A merger with Europay International in 2002 led to the formation of MasterCard International. This was accompanied by a conversion to a private-share corporation. A contactless payment program, dubbed PayPass, was introduced in a trial program in 2002 as well, in partnership with  three other institutions: Chase, Citibank, and MBNA.

Originally, MasterCard was owned by the 25 thousand plus card-issuing financial institutions. As the PayPass system grew through the decade, MasterCard underwent other governance changes, changing its ownership structure in 2006, the year that MasterCard began being traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). That same year, the name MasterCard Worldwide was debuted.

VISA

Just as MasterCard grew out of an earlier offering and grew technologically while expanding globally, VISA did as well. VISA's roots lie with the BankAmericard, offered by Bank of America as a revolving credit enabled card in 1958. Incorporation as National BankAmericard Inc. (NBI) took place in 1970.

The 1970s saw the launch of NBI's electronic authorization system, an industry first, in 1973, followed in 1974 by an electronic clearing and settlement system which would form the foundation on which VisaNet was built. BANCO, the International Bankcard Company was formed in 1974 to run the international program offerings, and the name change to VISA followed in 1976.

Like MasterCard, VISA launched its global ATM network in the 1980s, auditioning its 24-hour per day cash access system in 1983. In 1986, VISA worked to bring greater convenience to customers by offering multiple-currency clearing and settlement so that financial institutions  could resolve transactions more quickly.

VISA was an industry leader in introducing neural networks in its payment system in 1993. Because this system provides data about suspicious transactions more efficiently, it had the potential for reducing card fraud. That same year welcomed VISA's international prepaid card, the first of its kind.

VISA, MasterCard, and Europay teamed up in 1995  to create standardized card chip specifications, so that all card offerings could be read by terminals. The first transaction with a payment card in euros took place in 1999.

Like MasterCard, VISA underwent corporate restructuring in the first decade of the 21^st century. In 2007, this led to VISA, Inc., a global organization. And in 2008, VISA made an initial public offering (IPO) and began to be traded on the New York Stock Exchange. Like MasterCard, it had previously been a cooperative formed of the 21,000 or so financial institutions that offered the card.