Pascarella insists that nobody is better positioned to become the premier medium of exchange.
Taxicabs, fast-food drive-up windows, soda-pop vending machines--Pascarella is putting credit card readers in all of them.
Pascarella's push to supplant greenbacks is as much a defensive move as an offensive foray.
Pascarella figures that Visa is in a better position than anyone else to get at that payday.
Pascarella, who took over in 1993, also is trying to transform Visa itself, by speeding up its metabolism.
It's yesterday's news, " says Carl Pascarella, the CEO of Visa USA. "Our goal now is to displace cash and checks.
Much of Visa's growth in recent years is owed to smart bets that Pascarella made on debit cards and commercial cards.
When Pascarella took over, Visa was losing market share because its member banks had a rule preventing Visa from issuing cards through nonbanks.
Pascarella's view: If a rule is hurting us, change the rule.
Later this year Pascarella will roll out Visa Commerce, a system he hopes will rival the B2B networks that some companies are trying to build on their own.
Pascarella pushed into corporate cards, too, taking on American Express.
Banks resisted them at first, but Pascarella pressed for them.
Pascarella aims to boost Visa's transaction volume tenfold by 2007.
After Visa built a lead, the then chief executive Carl Pascarella boasted to FORBES in 2002 that his brand would double annual volume to 42 billion transactions by 2007.
Once it is built, the system will support all kinds of new uses, not just Visa Commerce, and Pascarella is coming up with creative ways to use his network.
Pascarella hit the road, called on Visa's board members in person and lobbied them to change. (Visa is governed by a 15-person board made up of executives from member banks).
But even as Pascarella tries to lure new traffic, "some are looking for ways to stay off the Visa railroad and run on less expensive tracks, " says Gwenn Bezard, an analyst with Celent.
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