Mumbai: Visa Inc, the world's largest credit-card network, proposes to raise as much as $18.8 billion in what would be the biggest initial public stock offer in the United States.

Visa's planned initial offer would also be the world's second-biggest, after the $22 billion raised by Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd. in 2006.

In its filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Visa said it plans to sell 406 million Class A shares at a price band of $37 to $42 each, to raise a total of  $15 billion to $17.1 billion.

The San Francisco-based company said it might sell another 40.6 million shares to meet demand, boosting the potential size of the IPO to $18.8 billion.

Visa plans to use $10.2 billion of net proceeds of the issue to redeem other shares, and the balance for general corporate purposes. It hopes to pay quarterly dividend of 10.5 cents a share, ie, a dividend yield of about 1 per cent.

Visa also said it would set aside $3 billion of the IPO proceeds to cover costs of litigation, involving issuers such as American Express Co and Discover Financial Services, as well as major retailers that have accused card networks of price fixing. 

A successful IPO would surpass AT&T Wireless Group's $10.6 billion offer in 2000.

Visa's smaller rival MasterCard Inc. had come out with an IPO in May 2006.

Fifteen banks, including JPMorgan Chase & Co., Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Bank of America Corp, are managing the Visa share issue.

Banc of America Securities, Citigroup Global Markets, Goldman Sachs & Co, HSBC Securities, JPMorgan Securities, Merrill Lynch & Co, UBS Investment Bank and Wachovia Securities are arranging the IPO, Visa said.

Visa stock will list on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker V.