SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 15 2004 – LAWFUEL – Litigation, legal, law firm news – The following is a statement by Daniel Tarman, Senior Vice President of Visa USA:

“Visa will vigorously fight this lawsuit because American Express already
got what it wanted from the court — the ability to issue its products through
Visa members. It’s time for American Express to stop looking to the courts to
solve its problems and compete in the marketplace instead.

“No one should have to pay for American Express’ business mistakes.
American Express chose to walk away from working with banks in the 1980s, and
instead only competed against them. Now by suing Visa and member financial
institutions, American Express is suing the very same Visa Members with whom
it claims it wants to partner. American Express is demonstrating clearly that
it is no partner to banks. American Express can either try to partner with
banks, or compete against them, but they can’t do both.

“Further American Express blew its 18-year head start on Visa by ignoring
mainstream consumers and wrongly choosing to focus only on the wealthy. By
doing so, they limited their own ability to successfully compete. American
Express chose to pursue this misguided strategy and they should accept
responsibility for misreading the marketplace.

“This litigation will not remedy the fact that American Express doesn’t
have an access problem, they have a product problem. In fact, consumers enjoy
greater value and utility in owning a Visa card because Visa offers virtually
endless card products and features, and is unsurpassed in convenience,
security and accepted at millions more places worldwide than American Express.

“Visa will continue to do what we do best: delivering superior value to
our Members, cardholders and merchants. We are committed to supporting our
14,000 member financial institutions as they continue to compete head-to-head
with American Express. Visa provides our Members with the marketing, product,
and technology solutions that help differentiate them in this fiercely
competitive industry.”

For more information, please visit http://www.visamediacenter.com.

Web Site: http://www.visamediacenter.com