Visa has confirmed a round of layoffs, but did not disclose how many employees were let go.
The San Francisco Business Times reported that confirmation, adding former employees estimate between 800 and 1,500 jobs have been cut, with many of the layoffs coming at its Foster City, Calif. headquarters. The paper cites adjustments to the company's recent acquisition of Visa Europe and ongoing competition on the payments landscape.
The news comes two weeks after CEO Charlie Scharf's unexpected announcement that he was leaving the company to be closer to his family on the east coast. Visa quickly tabbed former American Express executive Alfred F. Kelly Jr. to succeed Scharf next month in the company's leadership role.
Visa and MasterCard credit cards are arranged for an illustration in Cambridge, Massachusetts on Wednesday, October 11, 2006. Visa Inc., the largest payment-card network, may raise as much as $17 billion in an initial public stock offering. Photographer: JB Reed/Bloomberg News
JB REED/BLOOMBERG NEWS
Visa closed its acquisition of Visa Europe in late June, putting the finishing touches on negotiations that started in November of 2015 and had been a topic of speculation in the payments industry for several years.
Visa has 4,000 employees in the San Francisco Bay area, and 11,000 worldwide, the Business Times reported. The layoffs also come a week after Visa delivered a solid fourth-quarter earnings report, with profits climbing 28% on increased card spending, and early signs that the Visa Europe acquisition would boost the bottom line in the future.
However, Scharf did note that "strong cost control discipline" helped the company's results in the year's final quarter.
Visa is expected to move into new offices in Palo Alto later this month, moving much of its technology and data research teams to that site.
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