Global not-for-profit joint ventures between commercial entities: an interview with Broox W. Peterson, former Senior Vice President and Assistant General Counsel, Visa International and Visa U.S.A

In an interview, Broox W. Peterson, former SVP and assistant general counsel, Visa International and Visa USA, talked about global not-for-profit joint ventures between commercial entities. Peterson said that there are many non-profit joint ventures between non-profit entities like hospital groups and other affiliations of charitable organizations, but not that many between commercial entities. Any commercial entity can be structured and operate as a non-profit entity, just as any non-profit entity can participate in activities that for-profit commercial businesses do. He added that the great strength of the card associations was the agreement of fierce bank competitors to cooperate to build an infrastructure platform that any member bank could use to compete with other members in card issuance and merchant signing. Actually, fierce banker may be an oxymoron. Anyway, the great weakness of the card associations was that large member banks resented the fact that the common infrastructure that they helped fund helped their competitors as well, both large and especially small.