Visa Usa Inc

Visa U.S.A., in an experiment that may allow the credit card giant to expand outside its traditional services, plans to offer debit cards for use in the home to make automatic bill payments. Later this year, Visa will place card-reading terminals--used to initiate automatic payments--in the homes of a select list of customers from two big banks, one on the East Coast and one on the West Coast.

After the biggest initial public offering in U.S. history, Visa Inc. shares soared 28% in their stock market debut Wednesday as investors bet that an accelerating shift to electronic payment would enrich the world's largest processor of credit and debit cards. The company's shares were priced Tuesday night at $44 a share, raising nearly $18 billion. They finished Wednesday at $56.50, up $12.50, on the New York Stock Exchange. The run-up gave the San Francisco-based company a market value of about $45 billion.

Visa Inc. raised $17.9 billion late Tuesday to complete the largest initial public offering in U.S. history and help prop up the wobbly financial services industry. The world's largest processor of credit and debit cards sold 406 million shares at $44 apiece to easily eclipse the previous U.S. record IPO of $10.6 billion set by AT&T Wireless eight years ago. If investment bankers exercise an option on an additional 40.6 million shares, Visa's IPO would end up raising $19.7 billion before expenses.

MasterCard International sued American Express Co. and Advanta Corp. to halt a credit card program they launched as a joint venture. Advanta responded by suspending the marketing of the "Rewards Accelerator" card until at least Jan. 22 in return for MasterCard's agreement not to take any disciplinary action before that time, MasterCard said.