Visa U.S.A. said JPMorgan Chase & Co. has agreed to issue most of its credit, debit, and commercial cards under the Visa brand and will convert most of its debit cards to Visa over the next few years.
In a letter to employees Monday, Visa's chief executive, Carl Pascarella, said that JPMorgan Chase had selected it "as its preferred payments partner."
"While Chase will continue to issue both MasterCard and Visa credit cards, we will maintain the greater share of their credit card portfolio," Mr. Pascarella wrote.
JPMorgan Chase said Monday that it would continue issuing cards through both Visa and MasterCard International. It did not mention the partnership that Mr. Pascarella described.
The New York banking company was predominately a MasterCard issuer until last year, when it acquired Bank One Corp., which issued all its debit cards and most of its credit cards with Visa.
James Dimon, Bank One's former CEO and now the president and chief operating officer of JPMorgan Chase, has been aggressively reinventing the culture of the merged company.
