While most of the financial industry is struggling, a few companies are still able to shine. One such company is Visa. The biggest credit card company on earth, Visa’s year-over-year income rose approximately 70% in their latest quarter.

Visa Debit Card (Image: Flickr)

This time last year, they posted an income of $314 on the quarter that finished at the end of March. In 2009, that number jumped all the way up to $536 million — beating predictions from almost every expert.

Visa thanks their increased fees, the increase use of debit cards and cut expenses for the improvement. In recent advertising campaigns, Visa has focused on promoting their debit cards. The fees made off the debit cards have been able to overshadow the areas of the company that have struggled.

Recently, the company said they wouldn’t adjust their outlook for the remainder of the year due to the swine flu outbreak.

One of the more interesting things that people are finding out as credit card issuers start closing accounts of those who are responsible with their credit is that issuers don’t actually want you to pay off your balance every month and use your card only occasionally. I was asked about this recently:

“I don’t understand why credit card companies care,” a friend said. “Don’t they get money on each transaction? Even if I pay off my credit card every month, or use it only occasionally, aren’t they making money even if I don’t pay interest?”

My friend has been caught in the common misconception that the company whose logo you see issues the card. While this is true of American Express and most Discover cards, the fact of the matter is that Visa and MasterCard are actually processing payments, not issuing credit cards. The card issuer — the bank or the credit union that set up your credit card account — earns money from the interest.

Payment processing fees

That 3% to 5% of the transaction that stores and other talk about when they say that part of your purchase is deducted actually goes to the payment processor. Visa and MasterCard have agreed to let certain issuers use their logos, and credit cards can easily be used around the world. But Visa and MasterCard do not get interest from your payments; they make money on the transaction fees they take for facilitating the transaction.

The only way for the actual issuers to make money, then, is to charge interest and fees. If you are not carrying a balance, the bank or credit union doesn’t make money off the loan it provides you. Discover and American Express are exceptions, because they have their own payment processing systems and issue their own credit cards.

Earlier this week I wrote about one of the things the US has been doing (or at least thinking about doing) to discourage travel to this country. Obviously, one of the biggest disincentives to travelling to the US is the whole border experience, even for citizens. It’s even more complicated for many of those who would like to stay and work in the US.

One of the most common visas for those who want to work in the US, particularly in the technical fields, is the so-called H-1B visa. The problem is that the H-1B is subject to a quota and a maximum duration, and has been wildly oversubscribed in recent years. Even for those who get into the US on the H-1B, the next six years are an ongoing period of continuous uncertainty, dependant as they are on a single employer for both the current visa and, if they want to remain longer, the next visa as well.

This in spite of the fact that other countries have attempted to lure away highly skilled technical people with their own versions of the H-1B. Those too were fairly limited in scope and duration, and didn’t really impact the number of people seeking H-1Bs into the US. Now, though, times are getting tougher, and H-1Bs are losing their jobs in increasing numbers. Losing a job means also losing the right to live and work in the US (since the visa is dependent on a particular job for a particular employer in a particular location), which means a high level of trauma for people otherwise used to the relative comfort of professional life.

Now, though, the Province of Alberta, Canada has decided to take advantage of the situation with a new advertising campaign. The headline of the full page ad in the Philadelphia Inquirer today was “Milk has an expiry date. You shouldn’t.” The Province is offering permanent residence visas to live in Alberta for certain temporary skilled workers, and is even holding information sessions in cities across the US to recruit for it.

Strangely, the URL in the (expensive) ad appears to be wrong, but the Province may well attract some very talented people who are tired of jumping through the hoops needed to live and work in the US.

Do you know someone who might be interested in checking out what Alberta has to offer?

So, you’ve decided to start doing business in the US, you’ve looked at locations for your US office, and maybe you’ve even incorporated an entity in the US. Now it’s time to start work, and it’s likely that you need to send someone to the US. Now you need some visas.

First things first, in most cases, the organizational work leading up to this point is likely ok “without a visa,” assuming you’re from one of the countries whose citizens are permitted to enter without a visa. Others will have completed that work on the B-1 visitor visa, but either way the requirements are the same. Individuals entering the US without a visa which permits work cannot do any work which primarily benefits a US company - they can enter for meetings and conferences, negotiate contracts, make sales, and sometimes even performing some limited services for US customers.

Any work for the US company, or which would arguably take away a job from a US worker, would require a visa which permits employment in the US. If you are looking to transfer an existing employee to the US, if you will be putting a significant amount of money at risk in the US, or if US trade already makes up a significant part of your international trading business, there are probably visas available to you.

Now, most businesses considering an entrée into the US market have one of the above, and can probably obtain the necessary visas. It’s critical to consider this at an early stage in the planning process, because a key employee can make the difference between success and failure in any market.

image from seoul.usembassy.gov

Those of you who travel or purchase products abroad using a credit card may find things a little cheaper if the EU gets its way. According to this report at CNNMoney.com, the EU is pressuring Mastercard to drop fees on international transactions. While Mastercard appears to be the immediate target, the EU is also looking at Visa as well.

image from mastercard.com