Cielo is the largest

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

ian credit and

debit Debits and credits in double-entry bookkeeping are entries made in account ledgers to record changes in value resulting from business transactions. A debit entry in an account represents a transfer of value ''to'' that account, and a credit e ...

card operator. Cielo is the biggest payment system company in Latin America by revenue and market value.

History

Companhia Brasileira de Meios de Pagamento (Brazilian Company of Means of Payment), dba VisaNet, was founded in 1995 as a joint-venture between Visa International and the banks

Bradesco Banco Bradesco S.A. is a Brazilian financial services company headquartered in Osasco, in the state of São Paulo, Brazil. It is the third largest banking institution in Brazil, as well as the third largest in Latin America, and the seventy-nint ...

, Banco do Brasil, Banco Real (currently

Banco Santander Banco Santander, S.A., doing business as Santander Group (, , Spanish: ), is a Spanish multinational financial services company based in Madrid and Santander in Spain. Additionally, Santander maintains a presence in all global financial centr ...

), and the now defunct

Banco Nacional Banco Nacional was a bank from Brazil. It was taken over by Unibanco in 1995. The ''Nacional'' brand is better known as main sponsor of Ayrton Senna during most of his racing career in Formula One (1984-1994). The TV Globo's popular news progra ...

. Its purpose was to create a common infrastructure to be used by all banks issuing Visa cards, instead of each bank having a separate technological solution to process credit card transactions. On July 1, 2010 VisaNet was renamed Cielo and was no longer the only processor of Visa cards in Brasil, following a regulation by the Brazilian government. Its main competitor, Rede, was now allowed to process Visa cards, and Cielo was allowed to process Mastercard,

Diners Club A diner is a small, inexpensive restaurant found across the United States, as well as in Canada and parts of Western Europe. Diners offer a wide range of foods, mostly American cuisine, a casual atmosphere, and, characteristically, a com ...

and other cards which were only processed by Redecard.

IPO

VisaNet debuted on the

São Paulo Stock Exchange B3 S.A. - Brasil, Bolsa, Balcão (in English, ''B3 - Brazil Stock Exchange and Over-the-Counter Market''), formerly BM&FBOVESPA, is a stock exchange located in São Paulo, Brazil, and the second oldest of the country. Its current form can be tra ...

on June 29, 2010 listed in Novo Mercado. It was the third largest IPO in the history of

Bovespa B3 S.A. - Brasil, Bolsa, Balcão (in English, ''B3 - Brazil Stock Exchange and Over-the-Counter Market''), formerly BM&FBOVESPA, is a stock exchange located in São Paulo, Brazil, and the second oldest of the country. Its current form can be trac ...

, only behind Banco Santander Brasil and BB Seguridade. The company raised the equivalent of R$ 8.397 billion or US$ 4.428 billion through the sale of 559.8 million ordinary shares, 41% of the shares of the company.

References

{{Ibovespa companies Companies listed on B3 (stock exchange) Companies based in São Paulo (state) Financial services companies of Brazil Financial services companies established in 1997 Brazilian brands