PVR INOX with Visa Launch Mobile Tap to Pay Across 160 Cinemas in Top 8 Cities

PVR INOX, India’s largest multiplex chain, has partnered with VISA, the global leader in digital payments, to revolutionize the movie-going experience by driving seamless, secure, and contactless Mobile-based tap to pay transactions. The initiative will run for six months across 160 cinemas in the top eight metro cities of India.

This strategic collaboration is a significant step toward accelerating India's digital economy, encouraging cashless transactions and redefining the way audiences experience payments at the movies. Moviegoers can now use their Android, NFC-enabled smartphones to tap and pay using Visa cards for purchases at PVR INOX cineplexes. By embracing Mobile tap to pay, PVR INOX and Visa are making transactions faster, safer, and more convenient, setting a new benchmark for digital-first cinema experiences. At PVR INOX points of sale, this will encourage tapping to pay as the safest and most convenient method of payment for cinema audiences.

The partnership brings exclusive offers to Visa credit and debit cardholders in Mumbai, Delhi NCR, Chennai, Bengaluru, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad and Pune, further enhancing their cinema experience:

• Free Popcorn-Pepsi Combo: Customers who make ticket purchases of ₹1,000 or more at the box office using Visa’s Mobile tap to pay experience will receive a complimentary popcorn and Pepsi combo.
• 20% Discount on Food & Beverages: Moviegoers can enjoy a flat 20% discount (capped at ₹500) on food and beverage purchases when paying with Visa’s Mobile tap to pay at PVR INOX outlets.
• ₹200 Off on High-Value F&B Transactions: Customers who use their Visa cards to tap and pay for ₹2,000 or more on food and beverages will receive an instant discount of ₹200.

"At PVR INOX, we are committed to enhancing every aspect of the movie-going experience, and seamless, secure transactions are a key part of that journey. Our partnership with Visa marks a significant step toward fostering a cashless economy while ensuring our audiences enjoy the convenience and speed of Mobile tap to pay. By promoting cashless transactions with exclusive offers and integrating cutting-edge digital payment solutions, we are not just redefining transactions—we are setting new industry standards for innovation and customer satisfaction." said Mr. Gautam Dutta, CEO, Revenue & Operations, PVR INOX Limited.

The Mobile tap to pay feature from Visa ensures a hassle-free and faster payment experience. To avail of these offers, customers must load their Visa cards onto one of the supported digital wallets, including Samsung Wallet (exclusive to Samsung devices), Google Pay, CRED, HDFC PayZapp, SBI Card app, and ICICI iMobile. Once set up, users can simply tap their smartphones at the POS terminals to complete transactions securely and instantly.

"We are thrilled to partner with PVR INOX to promote mobile-based contactless transactions to millions of moviegoers across India. As consumers look for more mobile-first experiences, this collaboration aims to enhance convenience and speed of payments, allowing them to swiftly purchase refreshments during intervals or before the movie starts. With Visa's global expertise in contactless payments and PVR INOX's leadership in entertainment, we are redefining the moviegoing experience for a mobile-first audience," said Ramakrishnan Gopalan, Head of Products & Solutions, India and South Asia, Visa.

To maximize awareness and drive adoption, PVR INOX cinemas will prominently display promotional collateral, including tent cards at box offices and F&B counters, digital plasma screens, and POS digital displays. The campaign, driven by Publicis OOH, has elements that will effectively communicate the offers and encourage audiences to opt for Mobile tap to pay transactions.

This initiative plays a crucial role in India's digital transformation, supporting the government’s push toward a cashless economy. By reducing dependency on cash and promoting secure, hassle-free digital payments in the entertainment sector, PVR INOX and Visa are paving the way for a future where convenience meets innovation in every transaction, promoting digital-first transactions that prioritize security, speed, and ease of use. By bringing together Visa’s expertise in payment technology and PVR INOX’s extensive cinema network, this partnership is set to redefine how moviegoers experience payments at the cinema.

Visa and Skill India Ink 3-Year Partnership to Upskill 20,000 Youth in Tourism-relevant Skills

Visa has partnered with the Tourism & Hospitality Skill Council (THSC) under the Ministry of Skill Development & Entrepreneurship to upskill 20,000 Indian youths in tourism-related skills.

This three-year partnership, valued at up to $1 million, aims to enhance the tourism service experience across 10 states, including Assam, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, and West Bengal.

The program will focus on essential roles within the tourism industry, such as tour guides, customer service executives, naturalists, and paragliding tandem pilots.

This initiative is expected to boost employment prospects for the youth and improve the overall experience for tourists visiting India.

The Tourism & Hospitality Skill Council (THSC) is a key player in India’s skill development ecosystem, operating under the Ministry of Skill Development & Entrepreneurship (MSDE) and the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC).

Notably, India’s tourism sector is a significant contributor to the country’s economy and employment. Here are some key points about the tourism industry in India:

Tourism contributes around 5.8% to India’s GDP. The sector supports approximately 32.1 million jobs, which is about 7.3% of the total employment in the country

THSC aims to bridge the skill gap in the tourism and hospitality industry by creating a robust and sustainable ecosystem for skill development.

Besides this, Visa has been actively forming partnerships in India across various sectors. The American multinational payment card services corporation has also partnered with major Indian banks like State Bank of India and HDFC Bank to expand their merchant payments acceptance network. Additionally, Visa launched the ‘Visa in a Box’ accelerator program with ICICI Bank to support fintech startups.

Moreover, Visa is collaborating with UPI payment solution providers and digital wallets to integrate card payments with QR code-based transactions. This partnership aims to enhance the flexibility and convenience of digital payments for consumers.

Mastercard, Visa Reach $30 Bn Settlement In One of The Largest in US History

Visa and Mastercard have reached a significant settlement with US retailers, agreeing to a deal that will cap credit-card swipe fees. This settlement is estimated to save merchants at least $30 Billion over five years.

The agreement includes a reduction in interchange fees until 2030 and requires the companies to negotiate fees with merchant-buying groups.

This settlement is considered one of the largest antitrust settlements in U.S. history and is expected to resolve claims from litigation that began in 2005.

Under the settlement announced on Tuesday, Visa and Mastercard will reduce interchange rates by four basis points (0.04 percentage points) in the United States for three years, and cap rates for five years.

Retailers had accused Visa and Mastercard of overcharging on interchange fees and imposing anti-steering rules that prevented them from directing customers to less expensive payment methods. The settlement also aims to provide more discretion to merchants to offer discounts or impose surcharges on cards with higher interchange fees.

Interchange fees are transaction fees that the merchant's bank pays to the cardholder's bank to cover handling costs, fraud and bad debt costs, and the risk involved in approving the payment. Essentially, they are part of the overall fee that merchant services providers charge for processing credit and debit card transactions.

Interchange fees are calculated as a percentage of the total transaction amount, plus a fixed fee. These rates are set by credit card networks like Visa, Mastercard, American Express, and Discover, and typically update every April and October.

The collected interchange fees are then passed back to the bank that issued the customer's credit card.

For example, if Visa's interchange rate for a retail sale is 1.5% plus 10 cents, and the merchant services provider adds a service fee of 0.40% plus 8 cents, the total transaction fee would be 1.9% plus 18 cents.

The settlement between Visa and Mastercard and US retailers could have several potential impacts on consumers:

1. Credit Card Rewards: There's a possibility that the rewards and benefits offered by premium credit cards might be reduced. Since the settlement allows merchants to negotiate lower transaction rates, the revenue used to fund these rewards could decrease.

2. Cost of Using Premium Cards: Merchants may pass on the cost of transactions to consumers, especially for premium credit cards that typically have higher swipe fees. This could mean that consumers might have to pay more when using such cards.

3. Surcharging: The settlement gives merchants more freedom to impose surcharges on cards with higher interchange fees. So, consumers might face additional charges for using certain credit cards at some retailers.

4. Price of Goods and Services: If merchants decide to pass on the savings from lower swipe fees to consumers, there could be a reduction in the prices of goods and services. However, it's uncertain if and how much of the savings will be passed on to consumers.

It's important to note that the actual impact will depend on how merchants choose to respond to the changes in swipe fees and whether they decide to pass on the costs or savings to consumers. The effects might not be immediate and could evolve over time as the market adjusts to the new settlement terms.

Visa Launches $100 Mn Venture Fund for Generative AI Startups

Card-based payment services multinational organization Visa has announced the launch of a $100 Million venture fund to invest in Generative AI startups that will impact the future of commerce and payments.

Visa, which claims to be a pioneer of AI use in payments since 1993, considers this initiative an extension of Visa’s leadership in using AI to drive innovation in payments, create value for partners and clients, and enable and empower global commerce.

This generative AI ventures initiative will invest in the next generation of companies focused on developing generative AI technologies and applications that will impact the future of commerce and payments.

This initiative will be led by Visa Ventures, the global corporate investment arm of Visa. Visa Ventures has been investing in and partnering with companies driving innovation in payments and commerce since 2007.

David Rolf, Head of Visa Ventures, Visa Inc. said, "While much of generative AI so far has been focused on tasks and content creation, this technology will soon not only reshape how we live and work, but it will also meaningfully change commerce in ways we need to understand."

Earlier in 2018, Visa had launched $100 million Venture Fund for investment in fintech startups. 

5 Unique Reasons to Visit Australia

Australia, a remote and advanced country, is known for its exceptional natural beauty and exotic wildlife. Regardless of your travel preferences, budget, or age, Australia offers a one-of-a-kind travel experience that cannot be replicated elsewhere.

Despite the long flight, visiting one of the world's most remote countries is definitely worth it. Here are some unique reasons to visit Australia!

1. Australia is the perfect destination for a road trip

The country is the 6th largest nation in the world. It offers roughly 2.97 million square miles to explore at your own pace. You can enjoy the solitude of the outback and wild nature while camping or hop around and explore the many cities and small towns Australia offers.

This is the perfect place to explore off the main tourist routes. You can spend several months exploring each state or just a few weeks discovering the country's eastern side. The island of Tasmania is also a great place to spend a few weeks.

2. Australia enjoys sunny weather for most of the year

In Australia, only the southern region experiences a slight chill during winter (May-June). Apart from that, the northern part of the country maintains summer-like weather throughout the year, making it a popular destination for tourists and locals alike. This region offers various activities such as camping, hiking, surfing, and sunbathing at the beach, which can be enjoyed all year round.

3. Australia still preserves Aboriginal culture!

Australia has managed to preserve its rich Aboriginal culture. This is evident through the many Indigenous communities comprising over 600 groups of Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders. These groups have been thriving across Australia for over 50,000 years and were the original settlers of the land before colonization.

4. Let's not forget the incredible beaches

Australia boasts some of the world's most beautiful beaches. With over 23,000 miles (ca. 37,015 km) of coastline, there is no shortage of options to choose from, ensuring you'll find the beach that's perfect for you.

The country boasts over 11,011 beaches, ranging from big wave surfer hotspots to pristine white sand beaches and family-friendly shores.

Explore Australia's breathtaking beaches like Shelly Beach, Whitehaven Beach near the Great Barrier Reef, Cable Beach in Broome, Four Mile Beach in Port Douglas, and many others that will amaze you!

5. Australia is wild too!

Australia boasts vast stretches of untouched natural beauty. It offers the perfect getaway, from sunbathing on breathtaking beaches and diving in the Great Barrier Reef, to enjoying the open spaces and camping amidst wildlife.

The country’s distinctive and awe-inspiring wildlife features kangaroos, koalas, wombats, cockatoos, and kookaburras that can be observed in their natural habitats.
Are you ready for an adventure in Australia?

All of this sounds fantastic right?… time to make it a reality! Travel to Australia and get to know all of its beautiful places. Click on iVisa, the perfect platform to get your Australia eVisitor if you need it depending on your nationality. It’s fast and easy!

Edu-Fintech Startup Financepeer Launches "UVA", an Innovative Numberless Dual-interface Card for Students, First Time in India

With an aim to achieve cash-free campuses, Financepeer, one of India’s leading edu-fintech startups has unveiled its latest offering – the UVA Card, powered by Visa. Financepeer UVA Card Program will be their numberless prepaid photo ID card for students, parents, and institutes to make day-to-day transactions easy and hassle-free.

UVA Card, technologically backed by Visa, is an innovative approach to digitizing the financial system in educational institutes across India. The program intends to create cash-free campuses by enabling the institutes, parents, and students to pay and receive fees, withdraw cash, do e-commerce transactions and be able to make payments effortlessly at any retail outlets that use point of sale (POS) terminals. UVA Cards are pre-paid contactless cards that can drive financial independence among young adults. This card helps in getting extended credits, makes hassle-free payments, and teaches the youth to save and spend money wisely, besides offering various rewards and discounts.

Mr. Rohit Gajbhiye, CEO and Founder, of Financepeer, said, “We are working towards bringing a revolution in Edu-fintech space through technology and at the same time creating impact at the bottom of the pyramid, via increasing access to quality education. Our recent funding and collaboration with industry stalwarts have given renewed strength and a new purpose to our mission. In view of this, we are launching a numberless dual interface product which is a photo ID card to make cashless transactions easy for students, parents and institutes with just a tap. To make electronic payments safer and hassle-free for our students, these Visa cards have been designed with EMV chips”.

Mr. Sujai Raina, Head of Business Development, Visa India said "As a network working for everyone, Visa is committed to expanding financial access and inclusion across diverse demographics. We are delighted to collaborate with Financepeer as they launch the UVA Card, an innovative, prepaid card solution that not just works as a photo ID and payment instrument but aids financial discipline. The UVA card has been designed specifically keeping in mind the unique spending needs of students and their guardians, and is a decisive step towards building a cashless economy among young consumers."

Financepeer is gearing to expand its reach to remote areas and has witnessed 10x growth in the last year. The company has partnered with more than 10,000 educational institutions with a Pan-India footprint, to deliver affordable fee financing products, Edu-tech content, and fee payment solutions. Founded in 2017 by seasoned alumni from IIT/IIM/Stanford, Mr. Rohit Gajbhiye, Mr. Sunit Gajbhiye, Mr. Naveesh Reddy, and Mr. Debi Prasad Baral, Financepeer is one of the first players in this space catering to both offline and online education providers including pre-schools, K-12, colleges, universities, offline test prep, ed-tech, and skilling.

The launch of the UVA card underscores its strong foundation as a tech-led education financing company, giving learners the freedom to chase their dreams consistent with its focus on innovation and enabling a Rising New India through easy access to education. With a vision to enable inclusion through education globally, Financepeer is committed to facilitating access to education and fostering the growth of educational institutes and learners worldwide.

"Financepeer raised USD 31 MN in Series B funding round in April this year. We are working on enhancing our technology platform and offerings, expanding and strengthening our education-institution partnerships, and deepening the reach in rural areas to enable more students, especially the girl students, to get easy access to quality education", added Mr. Gajbhiye while addressing the media here at Famous Studio.

Education financing is one of the fastest-growing segments as it is a deeply underserved sector that enables the aspirations of learners across India. Due to the inherently high social collateral, the lending book for this segment has been among the best-performing ones, despite macro shocks caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

About Financepeer: www.financepeer.com

On the journey to becoming India’s fastest growing Edu-Fintech Company, Financepeer is a Forbes acclaimed and Google incubated high impact education fee financing company. Established in 2017, the Company headquartered in Mumbai, Maharashtra, has its presence in more than 100 cities in India and has collaborated with 10,000 + education institutes across boards. Mr. Rohit Gajbhiye is the CEO and Founder of Financepeer. Honored by Forbes 30, he is an alumnus of IIT Bombay and Stanford Ignite.

About Visa:

Visa (NYSE: V) is a world leader in digital payments, facilitating transactions between consumers, merchants, financial institutions, and government entities across more than 200 countries and territories. Our mission is to connect the world through the most innovative, convenient, reliable, and secure payments network, enabling individuals, businesses, and economies to thrive. We believe that economies that include everyone everywhere, uplift everyone everywhere and see access as foundational to the future of money movement. Learn more at Visa.com.

Visa to Enable Deeper Financial Inclusion with Offline Payments in India

After a successful pilot in Karnataka last year, Visa has advanced to the next stage, making offline payments possible with a proof of concept

Bengaluru – August 24, 2021 – Visa (NYSE: V), the global leader in digital payments, is driving a Proof of Concept (POC) for offline digital payments in India. A first for the domestic payments ecosystem, the initiative is led by Visa in partnership with YES BANK and Axis Bank. The offline payments technology will allow users to make transactions using chip-based Visa debit, credit and prepaid cards even in places with low or no internet connectivity. Extending Visa’s commitment to RBI guidelines on offline payments, the solution is a significant step towards greater financial inclusion across rural, urban and remote areas. The POC has been executed in partnership with Innoviti in catchment areas in Bengaluru.

This thrust to offline payments underlines the government’s vision of digital and financial inclusion in Digital India. In a country where cards are the most popular instrument of digital payments[1] and customers and merchants are migrating from cash to digital, offline payments can allow deeper percolation in the country. Visa cardholders may soon get to request their banks for a fresh card that enables this solution.

The chip will hold a stored value of a daily spend limit of INR 2,000 and have a per transaction limit of INR 200, as currently mandated by the RBI. This is akin to having a wallet with a preloaded amount. In the event of insufficient balance, the transaction will be declined, making this proposition suitable for cardholders as well as merchants. Merchants also stand to gain revenue from reduced friction and risk of payment failures. Visa’s solution is the first of its kind and equipped to enter the Indian market.

“The pandemic’s unprecedented impact has spurred significant movement in the digital payments ecosystem. With the RBI’s cognizance of low and no connectivity being major impediments to financial inclusion, offline payments have the potential to catalyse digital payments usage even where internet connectivity is a challenge and failed transactions are a top concern. With this solution, Visa aims to work with our clients to see if this can scale with mass adoption,” said T.R. Ramachandran, Group Country Manager, India and South Asia, Visa.

Prashant Kumar, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, YES BANK, said, “To drive adoption of digital transactions in remote reaches of the country and ensure financial inclusion, the Bank feels it is indispensable to invest in the right technology tools that will help service a significant proportion of the digital payments market in Bharat. We are glad for this opportunity to forge a valuable partnership that allows us to leverage emerging technologies with the potential to enrich customer journeys and make them more convenient across the country. With this approach, YES BANK has taken another step towards fulfilling its vision of satisfying customer needs in a convenient, harmonious way, especially in rural areas."

Commenting on the partnership, Sanjeev Moghe, EVP & Head- Cards & Payments, Axis Bank said, “We have been continuously working on innovations in the payments space to extend offerings that are low-cost payments acceptance solutions and a last-mile support for merchants. In this endeavour, we are delighted to partner with Visa for their first of its kind offline payments solution, which is a great opportunity for us to support micro-merchants in conducting their business smoothly."

"Lack of Internet connectivity have limited the democratization of digital payment acceptance in the country, as all existing payment technologies need real-time connectivity for authentication and authorization. Transaction failures arising from low quality connectivity impact consumer and merchant confidence, further impeding digital payment acceptance. Offline payments are a fast, reliable and low-cost way of solving this problem that can change the way payments happen. We are excited about partnering with Visa, Yes Bank and Axis Bank in this pilot,” said Rajeev Agrawal, MD & CEO, Innoviti Payment Solutions, India.

Nearly 70% of India’s rural population and 33% urban population is yet to adopt a digital mode of payment[2]. This necessitates driving greater inclusion, with offline payments as a feasible solution to connectivity issues. Aligned with this vision, Visa successfully conducted a pilot for offline payments across five villages in Karnataka in December 2020. The pilot was an extension to the RBI’s guidelines issued in August 2020 that allowed payments operators to launch pilot programs for small value offline payments.

About Visa Inc.

Visa is the world’s leader in digital payments. Our mission is to connect the world through the most innovative, reliable and secure payment network – enabling individuals, businesses and economies to thrive. Our advanced global processing network, VisaNet, provides secure and reliable payments around the world, and is capable of handling more than 65,000 transaction messages a second. The company’s relentless focus on innovation is a catalyst for the rapid growth of connected commerce on any device. As the world moves from analogue to digital, Visa is applying our brand, products, people, network and scale to reshape the future of commerce.


[1] Retail Payment Habits in India – Apr’21

[2] IAMAI’s Internet Adoption in India Report for 2020 (Press Release)

PayNearby Partners with Visa and RBL Bank to Launch SoftPoS and mPOS

Aims to democratize digital payments and reduce cash transactions at the last mile by offering an all-inclusive payment acceptance infrastructure at retail touch points

• Transform everyday smartphones into merchant terminals (SoftPoS) at no additional cost
• Enable 2-in-1 Micro ATM devices, that double up as payment acceptance (mPOS) and cash withdrawal at very affordable pricing
• Offer merchants, an all-inclusive digital payment hub that ensures easy acceptance across different form factors and simplifies both merchant and customer experience
• With QR code payment, Aadhaar Pay, UPI, Online Payment Gateway and now Card Payments through mPOS and contactless payment through cards/tokenized mobile on SoftPoS, PayNearby becomes India’s leading company to consolidate form-factor agnostic digital payments in retail
• Aims to proliferate digital payment acceptance among the largely underserved 30 million plus Indian MSMEs
• In the wake of COVID, enable customers to make safe, contactless payments at the last mile
• The low cost, simplicity and choice of the different form factors will drive easy acceptance among tech shy Indians, thus accelerating digital adoption in the country

Mumbai, 16 August, 2021: In a bid to create a digitally one nation, PayNearby, India’s leading branchless banking and digital payments network, has partnered with Visa and RBL Bank to launch SoftPoS and mPOS for its 15,00,000+ retail network. With the addition of these options, PayNearby becomes the first company to launch an all-inclusive digital package for retailers that is form factor agnostic and provides a wide choice to end consumers. PayNearby’s upgraded digital payment package now supports QR code payment, UPI payment, Aadhaar Pay, SMS payment, Card payment (debit/credit/contactless) and payment through mobile tokenization.

While SoftPoS allows merchants to accept contactless payments of up to INR 5000 through a simple tap and pay mechanism on NFC-enabled smartphones, PayNearby’s 2-in-1 Micro ATM + MPOS machine allows easy acceptance of debit/credit cards at the last mile. Customers can use any physical card (debit/credit/contactless) or mobile with tokenization and pay easily by using the above options. Aiding PayNearby in this initiative is processing partner, PayNext and SoftPoS solution partner, Uvik.

A majority of India’s population is still tech-shy, dependent on cash and lying outside the folds of financial inclusion. One of the reasons for digital payments taking a back seat in the country is that smaller merchants do not have the money to invest in infrastructure. According to a cross country dataset released by RBI recently, the density of population dependent on a POS terminal is 358 in India, as against about 20 in neighbouring China, 10 in Brazil, Turkey, Netherlands and Italy. The dataset comparing 22 countries, showcases India to have the lowest POS density per person*.

However, the pandemic has amplified the need for contactless payments to reduce the risk of transmission. This has given a major boost to digital payment adoption in the country and is also helping in promoting new form factors and experiences in this sector. To make digital payments pervasive in the country, it has to be as seamless as accepting cash both on the merchant and the consumer side.

With the SoftPoS and mPOS offering, PayNearby aims to address the national challenge of inadequate payments infrastructure and eliminate barriers to seamless digital adoption. On the acceptance side, merchants do not have to spend a lot of money to lay down the foundation of digital acceptance and expand their customer base and sales. With SoftPoS, the ubiquitous smartphone can be converted into a digital acceptance device. The 2-in-1 micro ATM + mPOS machine drives value at very affordable pricing and allows easy acceptance of debit and credit card payments. With these innovations, local stores even in the remotest areas will now be able to process digital payments on their smartphones and Micro ATM devices. On the consumer side, the solution is as easy, secure and quick as exchanging cash.

Commenting on the occasion, Anand Kumar Bajaj, Founder, MD & CEO, PayNearby said, “As India moves towards rapid digital growth, PayNearby is committed to simplifying high-end technology for the bottom of the pyramid so that benefits of digital payments and digital banking can reach the masses. Through our SoftPoS and mPOS solutions, in partnership with Visa and RBL Bank, we wish to build an ecosystem by adding to the number of acceptance points for easy and fast digital payments. In the wake of COVID, this is vital for both our retail partners and their consumers.

Along with our existing solutions, introduction of SoftPoS and mPOS to our product portfolio enables us to offer a complete digital payment solution to Bharat. We are confident that the addition of SoftPoS to the JAM (Jan-Aadhaar- Mobile) trinity graduates Bharat to JAMS (Jan-Aadhaar-Mobile-SoftPoS), which will pave the way for a digital economy, and provide stimulus to communities at the grass root level. This will make ‘Digital India’ a closer reality, even at the remotest locations in Bharat.

We are extremely honored to partner with RBL Bank and Visa in these initiatives. Our partners bring with them demonstrated expertise in banking and digital payment products and lend credence and proficiency to the offering. We also thank PayNext and Uvik for joining us in this journey. At PayNearby, we will continue to innovate every single day to democratize digital solutions and make the dream of an equal Digital India come true."

Rajeev Ahuja, Executive Director RBL Bank said, “Payment platforms have been disrupted the most owing to the ever-evolving preferences in the financial ecosystem. We are delighted to partner with PayNearby to build and offer an innovative and secure payment solutions for the Indian MSMEs, the backbone of our economy. With this association, we look forward to empower the customers and retailers with a simple and seamless digital platform. It enables us to onboard merchants from various geographies and deepen the penetration of digital infrastructure in the country.”

Shailesh Paul, Head of Merchant Sales & Acquiring, India and South Asia, Visa said “As the country opens up slowly, it is critical to focus on the recovery of small merchants, the backbone of our economy. This sizeable segment has lagged in accepting digital payments due to notions of cost and infrastructure.

We’re delighted to partner with PayNearby to bring solutions like SoftPoS to merchants, and enable low cost, safe and simple Tap to Phone payments across the country at scale. Visa has committed to empowering and digitizing small businesses worldwide and in India, and partnering with fintechs like PayNearby is a definite step towards achieving that objective."

About PayNearby:

Incepted in April 2016, PayNearby is a fintech company creating technology and distribution network to reach financial/non-financial services to India and Bharat both. PayNearby empowers retail shop owners to offer digital services to local communities, thereby boosting digital financial inclusion. Retailer services are focused on Agent Banking, Digital payments, microSavings, microInsurance, Loan enablement among others.

It was founded by Anand Kumar Bajaj, Subhash Kumar, Yashwant Lodha & Rajesh Jha who bring with them rich experience in the field of banking, payments and other financial sectors. PayNearby is a DIPP-certified FinTech startup, partnering with various financial institutions including YES Bank, RBL Bank, IndusInd Bank, SBM Bank India, Equitas SFB, Ujjivan SFB, Axis Bank, ICICI Bank, State Bank of India, CC Avenue, Bill Desk, NPCI, FASTag, NBFC and FMCG companies. It is the sole technology provider using Aadhaar Enabled Payment Services (AEPS) and IMPS to YES Bank, making them one of the only two fintech companies hosted by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI). For details, please visit https://www.paynearby.in

Visa Becomes First Major Payments Network to Settle Transactions in USD Coin (USDC)

Visa (NYSE: V) today announced a major industry first in bridging the worlds of digital and traditional fiat currencies: the use of USD Coin (USDC), a stablecoin backed by the US dollar, to settle a transaction with Visa over Ethereum—one of the most actively used open-source blockchains.¹ Visais piloting the capability with Crypto.com, a Visa partner and one of the world’s largest crypto platforms, and plans to offer the USDC settlement capability to additional partners later this year.

Support for digital currencies as a new type of settlement currency marks an important step forward for Visa’s network of networks strategy, which is designed to enhance all forms of money movement, whether on the Visa network, or beyond. By harnessing its global presence, partnership approach, and trusted brand, Visa is focused on adding differentiated value to the ecosystem and making cryptocurrencies more secure, useful, and applicable for payments.

Visa has spent the last year establishing a pathway for digital currency settlement within Visa’s existing treasury infrastructure, a platform that moves billions of dollars each day across thousands of institutions in more than 200 markets and 160 currencies. Working with Anchorage, the first federally chartered digital asset bank and an exclusive Visa digital currency settlement partner, Visa has launched a pilot that allows Crypto.com to send USDC to Visa to settle a portion of its obligations for the Crypto.com Visa card program.

Visa’s standard settlement process requires partners to settle in a traditional fiat currency, which can add cost and complexity for businesses built with digital currencies. The ability to settle in USDC can ultimately help Crypto.com and other crypto native companies evaluate fundamentally new business models without the need for traditional fiat in their treasury and settlement workflows. Visa’s treasury upgrades and integration with Anchorage also strengthen Visa’s ability to directly support new central bank digital currency (CBDC) as they emerge in the future.

“Crypto-native fintechs want partners who understand their business and the complexities of digital currency form factors,” said Jack Forestell, executive vice president and chief product officer, Visa. “The announcement today marks a major milestone in our ability to address the needs of fintechs managing their business in a stablecoin or cryptocurrency, and it’s really an extension of what we do every day, securely facilitating payments in all different currencies all across the world.”

Kris Marszalek, Co-founder and CEO of Crypto.com said: “We’ve seen record-breaking growth in our business and the broader crypto ecosystem over the last year. To continue accelerating the world’s transition to cryptocurrency, we need partners who understand the opportunity and the tools that will help us get to market faster and more efficiently. Having been a Visa partner for several years, we’re excited to deepen that relationship through our global agreement and to pioneer an exciting world-first in stablecoin payments.”

“Anchorage’s platform has been purposefully built for institutions like Visa to build new products in crypto. We’ve been with Visa every step of the way since 2019 and are extremely pleased to see these first stablecoin payment rails come to life through Anchorage APIs,” said Diogo Mónica, Co-Founder and President of Anchorage.

David Puth, CEO of Centre, which oversees the licensing of USDC, said: "Visa is leading the market with its innovative approach to payments in many forms. We are very impressed with their efforts. Having USDC on the Visa network is an outstanding next step in our mission to connect the world using stablecoins built on Centre standards, starting with USDC."

To learn more about today’s news and the settlement process at Visa, visit the Visa blog.

About Visa

Visa (NYSE: V) is the world’s leader in digital payments. Our mission is to connect the world through the most innovative, reliable and secure payment network - enabling individuals, businesses and economies to thrive. Our advanced global processing network, VisaNet, provides secure and reliable payments around the world, and is capable of handling more than 65,000 transaction messages a second. The company’s relentless focus on innovation is a catalyst for the rapid growth of digital commerce on any device, for everyone, everywhere. As the world moves from analog to digital, Visa is applying our brand, products, people, network and scale to reshape the future of commerce. For more information, visit About Visa, visa.com/blog and @VisaNews.

1 “Settlement” refers to the daily exchange of funds between Visa’s issuing and acquiring partners over VisaNet to exchange value for cleared and settled transactions—it does not refer to the movement of funds from individual consumer accounts.

Visa to Allow Payment Settlements Using Cryptocurrency USDC

Visa's move comes as major finance firms including BNY Mellon, BlackRock Inc and Mastercard Inc have embraced some digital coins, sparking predictions that cryptocurrencies will become a regular part of investment portfolios.

Visa Inc said on Monday it will allow the use of the cryptocurrency USD Coin to settle transactions on its payment network, the latest sign of growing acceptance of digital currencies by the mainstream financial industry.

Visa has launched the pilot program with payment and crypto platform Crypto.com and plans to offer the option to more partners later this year, it said.

The USD Coin (USDC) is a stablecoin cryptocurrency whose value is pegged directly to the U.S. dollar.

Visa's move comes as major finance firms including BNY Mellon, BlackRock Inc and Mastercard Inc have embraced some digital coins, sparking predictions that cryptocurrencies will become a regular part of investment portfolios.

Tesla Inc boss Elon Musk said last week that customers can buy its electric vehicles with bitcoin, marking a significant step forward for the cryptocurrency's use in commerce.

"We see increasing demand from consumers across the world to be able to access, hold and use digital currencies and we're seeing demand from our clients to be able to build products that provide that access for consumers," Cuy Sheffield, head of crypto at Visa, said.


Traditionally, if a customer chooses to use a Crypto.com Visa card to pay for a coffee, the digital currency held in a cryptocurrency wallet needs to be converted into traditional money.

The cryptocurrency wallet will deposit traditional fiat currency in a bank account, to be wired to Visa at the end of the day to settle any transactions, adding cost and complexity for businesses.

Visa's latest step, which will use the ethereum blockchain, strips out the need to convert digital coin into traditional money in order for the transaction to be settled.

Visa said it has partnered with digital asset bank Anchorage and completed the first transaction this month — with Crypto.com sending USDC to Visa's Ethereum address at Anchorage.

ORIGINAL SOURCE - Economic Times

Henley & Partners: Entrepreneurs Opt for Domicile Diversification in Covid-19 Era

Image - Henleyglobal.com

LONDON, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- The significant global volatility driven by Covid-19 has led to a spike in affluent entrepreneurs and international investors building geographically diversified domicile portfolios through residence- and citizenship-by-investment in a bid to overcome the limitations and risks of being restricted to a single residence.

In the past eight months, Henley & Partners has seen a 32% increase in the daily average number of enquiries compared to the first six months of 2020. The shifts in the predominant nationalities who are interested in investment migration are eye opening — with the most astonishing being a 192% leap in enquiries from US citizens in 2020 compared to the previous year. Enquiries from Canadians are up 34%, and there have been 29% and 26% more enquiries from UK and French nationals, respectively.

Dr. Juerg Steffen, CEO of Henley & Partners, says ultra-high-net-worth individuals from the world's most advanced economies are opting for an integrated investment migration portfolio of complementary citizenship and residence options to create optimal value and mitigate risk in terms of where they and their families can live, work, study, and invest. "It's a classic case of not putting all your eggs in one basket. The majority of program options include the whole family, and many extend to parents and even to grandparents and siblings. The more jurisdictions you can access, the more diversified your assets and opportunities, and the lower your exposure to country-specific risks such as poor health security, increased tax rates or unexpected policy changes."

The growing interest in securing a suite of domicile options to improve the resilience of portfolios and ensure physical and financial longevity and legacy in the wake of the pandemic is a world-wide phenomenon, according to Dominic Volek, Group Head of Private Clients at Henley & Partners. "This is about taking a truly global perspective, and the best way to do that is to have a diversified portfolio — a range of locations where you, your family and extended family, and your assets can be based, giving you alternative business, career, educational, healthcare, and lifestyle opportunities on a worldwide scale."

"There are many options that cater for large, multi-generational families who don't necessarily want or need to be in the same location. For example, a successful tech entrepreneur could apply for Australia's Global Talent Independent Visa to obtain permanent residence there. The children have their sights set on studying in Europe or the UK, so they also apply for the UK Investor Immigration Program or the Portugal Golden Residence Permit Program. The retired parents, on the other hand, would prefer to spend time in Thailand, so they could apply for the Thailand Elite Residence Program, which has an option that includes multiple dependents. Covid-19 has reminded us that we need to take a long-term strategic approach, not make a mad dash to the emergency exit when things go wrong in our current place of residence."

Media Contact:
Paddy Blewer
Head of Communications
paddy.blewer@henleyglobal.com

Visa Introduces AI-Powered Innovations for Smarter Payments

Representation

Visa Inc. (NYSE: V) today announced VisaNet +AI, a suite of AI-powered services that address long-standing challenges and pain points for banks, merchants and consumers—including delays and confusion with managing account balances and the unpredictability of daily settlement for financial institutions. VisaNet +AI comprises several innovative concepts and new value-added services, including Visa Smarter Posting and Visa Smarter Settlement Forecast, as well as Visa Smarter Stand-In Processing (Smarter STIP), a capability announced in August of last year. These innovations harness Visa’s high-performance AI platform to help make payments more predictable, transparent, and speedy.

“Our clients, partners and cardholders look to us for actionable data-driven insights to better manage their businesses and financial lives, especially during these unprecedented times. Today we’re announcing a set of services that use AI to make it easier for consumers to manage their accounts, and for financial institutions to manage their business,” said Jack Forestell, executive vice president and chief product officer, Visa. “With our investment in AI infrastructure, we’re unlocking novel, real-time solutions to complex problems. This is just the beginning of what we can do with the predictive power of AI.”

Smarter Posting helps provide greater transparency for consumers

Today’s digital-native consumers expect real-time visibility into their finances as they increasingly conduct banking on mobile and online platforms. However, the payment experience for consumers can be inconsistent, with some purchases taking longer to finalize on their balance than others. This lag can create confusion or concern for cardholders, resulting in increased call center volume or potential overdrafts.

This delay occurs because the amount authorized in real-time at the checkout counter can differ from the amount eventually cleared from a consumer’s account. For example, the final amount can change when a restaurant-goer adds a tip at a restaurant, or when a cross-border payment happens involving multiple currencies. To prevent consumer confusion from seeing multiple charges for a single transaction, banks often delay posting the payment or updating the account balance until they have certainty about the final amount.

To help issuers create a better banking experience for cardholders, Visa developed Smarter Posting, a service that uses AI to deliver a customized score for each transaction as part of the authorization process. The Smarter Posting model analyzes transaction details and historical data to predict the likelihood that a transaction amount will remain consistent through clearing. In testing, the model has achieved 98% accuracy1 in predicting whether the transaction amount will likely remain stable, giving financial institutions added intelligence to provide a more consistent end-to-end payment experience, for example, by provisionally updating the account balance that a cardholder sees.

Visa Smarter Posting will be initially available in Europe in April 2021 and is slated to expand globally in the near future.

Smarter Settlement Forecast uses predictive modeling to anticipate cash flow needs

 
Every day during the settlement process, Visa enables the movement of billions of dollars across thousands of institutions in more than 200 countries and territories and 160 currencies. It’s the final step in the payment cycle, where transactions are aggregated, transfers are facilitated between acquirers and issuers, and merchant accounts are credited for the sales they’ve made.

This process requires financial institutions to strategically allocate resources—so that there is enough liquidity to meet the day’s settlement volume, without over-allocating resources that could be leveraged elsewhere in their business. Today’s volatile environment has underscored the challenge treasury teams face in predicting daily volumes and making strategic decisions.

Visa created Smarter Settlement Forecast to provide clients with customized 7-day forecasts of the settlement amount they may need on hand each day. The service uses information generated by historical settlement volumes, seasonal indicators, macro-trends, outlier events, such as those surrounding COVID-19, and real-time transaction data to provide high quality predictions of cash outflows and inflows. These forecasts can help issuers and acquirers optimize treasury and liquidity management processes, and assist financial institutions settling in multiple currencies with predictions for each currency.

Smarter Settlement Forecast is slated to be made available to eligible clients through a subscription in the Visa Analytics Platform, thereby simplifying integration for clients. Visa is currently piloting the service with three clients ahead of its formal launch planned for later this year.Smarter STIP can improve payment experiences during outages

 
Visa Smarter Stand-In Processing (Smarter STIP), the first of the VisaNet +AI capabilities announced in August 2020, has gained traction among leading financial institutions globally. Smarter STIP uses deep learning to help financial institutions increase transaction authorizations during outages. Smarter STIP generates an informed decision to approve or decline transactions on behalf of issuers to provide consumers with a frictionless Visa payment experience.

Since its release, Smarter STIP has seen strong issuer interest across every Visa region. In just two months, clients around the world have added Smarter STIP to their suite of Visa solutions, including Caixa Econômica Federal, and Doha Bank.

“In Visa we have a partner that is driving new innovations in AI for payments,” said Mr. Braik Ali H S Al – Marri, Chief Retail Banking Officer, Doha Bank, Qatar. “With VisaNet +AI we can harness those innovations and drive new value for our business and customers."

About Visa Inc.

Visa Inc. (NYSE: V) is the world’s leader in digital payments. Our mission is to connect the world through the most innovative, reliable and secure payment network - enabling individuals, businesses and economies to thrive. Our advanced global processing network, VisaNet, provides secure and reliable payments around the world, and is capable of handling more than 65,000 transaction messages a second. The company’s relentless focus on innovation is a catalyst for the rapid growth of digital commerce on any device for everyone, everywhere. As the world moves from analog to digital, Visa is applying our brand, products, people, network and scale to reshape the future of commerce. For more information, visit About Visa, visa.com/blog and @VisaNews. 

---

¹ Visa data based on analysis comparing the model prediction of when authorization and clearing amounts will remain consistent. Analysis conducted on historical transaction data (August - September 2020) for 150 million transactions.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210202005166/en/

Visa Invites India’s Top Startups to Unlock Their Global Potential

Visa, the world’s leader in digital payments, is announcing an accelerator program for startups in India that are looking to expand their businesses into new markets. Visa will select an elite group of up to six startups to be part of the first program cohort. The Visa Accelerator Program will focus on creating defined commercial opportunities for the startups to collaborate with Visa and its extensive network of bank and merchant partners.

 
The Visa Accelerator Program is designed for startups that have launched successful solutions in their home markets, but are looking towards the next stage of growth. As the engine of global commerce, Visa is uniquely positioned to help startups break into new geographies and reach new customer groups.
 
“In Visa’s ongoing work with the startup community, we often see companies face challenges when taking their business from a local success story to becoming a player in multiple markets,” said TR Ramachandran, Group Country Manager, India and South Asia, Visa. “Visa has global expertise that can help startups take their expansion plans off the white board and into the real world.”
 
Digital economy, small businesses, open data all key focus areas
 
Startups in the Visa Accelerator Program should be ready to work on some of the most pressing financial and technological opportunities in India. Visa is looking for startups that want to address areas such as: 
 

• Expanding access to the digital economy to consumers and businesses that may be underserved or cash-dependent
• Supporting small businesses as they grapple with changing technology demands and the ongoing impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic
• Leveraging the growing open data environment in the region to develop more personalised banking and shopping experiences
• Developing new ways of moving money that aren’t dependent on traditional credit and debit cards

 
TR Ramachandran added, “There is no shortage of fantastic solutions coming out of India’s startup community. What’s most important to Visa is how we can support those solutions getting elevated to a stage wherein a few months’ time they could be pitched as a commercial deal to a leading bank, retailer or technology company in India. A big differentiator for the Visa Accelerator Program is our concentration on a small number of startups that are truly ready to unlock that next level,” said.
 
Join the program
 
The Visa Accelerator Program is a new part of Visa’s broader set of platforms and activities for the startup community in India. With its dedication to supporting international expansion, the Visa Accelerator Program is the right fit for startups that are Series A and above, have a long-term commitment to India growth and existing operations in the region, and have a market-validated, proven solution.
 
For more information, including how to apply, visit: https://www.visa.com.sg/apaccelerator

Visa and IFundWomen Bring Global Grant Program to India to Support Women Entrepreneurs

Visa extends global partnership with IFundWomen, the go-to marketplace for women-owned businesses, to India

Visa (NYSE: V), the global leader in digital payments technology, today announced the launch of a grant program in India to support women entrepreneurs with its global partner, IFundWomen. As an extension of two successful programs launched in the U.S. this year, women entrepreneurs in India will now receive funding from Visa to grow and expand their business. IFundWomen, the go-to marketplace for women-owned businesses and all the people who want to support them with access to capital, coaching and connections. Visa’s partnership with IFundWomen is specifically designed to help women entrepreneurs secure the funding they need through a series of grants.

T R Ramachandran, Group Country Manager, India and South Asia, Visa said, “Women-owned businesses play an important role in commerce and employment generation. However, they constitute only around 14% of the total entrepreneur base in India[1]. We want to see this number increase but our interactions with women entrepreneurs show that access to capital to fund, run and grow their businesses remains a challenge. The Visa and IFundWomen grant program in India, the first outside of the U.S., aims to boost female entrepreneurship and empower budding businesswomen through our network, guidance, financial support and resources to help achieve their dreams. Visa is committed to championing women in all facets of life in the pursuit of economic growth, job creation and an inclusive society.”

From today until October 20, Visa will be seeking applications from women entrepreneurs across all sectors. To participate, applicants need to submit details about their business and online presence, along with a short video about their business to www.ifundwomen.com/visa-india. Three winners will be selected from the shortlist and receive grants of Rs. 7,00,000 each and coaching from leaders within the Visa and IFundWomen network. Visa has partnered with FLO (the ladies’ wing of FICCI) and Instamojo as Digitization partner for the program in India.

In June, Visa committed to supporting 50 million small businesses globally to power recovery and enable them digitally. In August, through the first India edition of Visa Everywhere Initiative, it awarded three fintech startups with monetary awards and technological support from Visa to take their solutions to market. Now with the announcement of this grant program, Visa furthers its commitment to support small businesses, particularly those led by women entrepreneurs across India.

[1]Women & Entrepreneurship In India 2019: Our New Study Uncovers What Women Need To Flourish

About Visa Inc.

Visa Inc. (NYSE: V) is the world’s leader in digital payments. Our mission is to connect the world through the most innovative, reliable and secure payment network - enabling individuals, businesses and economies to thrive. Our advanced global processing network, VisaNet, provides secure and reliable payments around the world, and is capable of handling more than 65,000 transaction messages a second. The company’s relentless focus on innovation is a catalyst for the rapid growth of digital commerce on any device for everyone, everywhere. As the world moves from analog to digital, Visa is applying our brand, products, people, network and scale to reshape the future of commerce. For more information, visit About Visa, visa.com/blog and @VisaNews.

Visa Harnesses Real-Time Deep Learning to Enhance Transaction Processing

Visa Inc. (NYSE: V) today announced Visa Smarter Stand-in Processing (Smarter STIP), a new capability that uses real-time artificial intelligence (AI) to help financial institutions manage transaction authorizations when service disruptions occur.

Using deep learning to analyze past transactions, Smarter STIP generates informed decisions to approve or decline transactions on behalf of issuers in the event that their systems go offline. Visa pioneered the use of AI and neural networks to prevent fraud—Smarter STIP builds on that track record, and is the first in a suite of new AI-powered innovations coming to VisaNet, Visa’s global processing network.

“Consumers expect instant and uninterrupted access to their funds—failure to meet that expectation can be costly,” says Jack Forestell, executive vice president and chief product officer, Visa. “Stand-in processing has always been a vital assurance to our clients that when the unexpected occurs, we’ve got their back. By adding AI, that capability becomes smarter, stronger, and more dynamic.”

Addressing the challenge of downtime

Whether it’s scheduled maintenance or an unexpected outage, service downtime is disruptive for financial institutions and their customers. When stand-in processing is not in place, the potential impacts can be profound: lost revenue due to failed transactions, poor cardholder experience resulting in call volume spikes to customer service centers, damage to reputation, and even scrutiny from regulators.

Visa’s new Smarter STIP service builds on Visa’s existing STIP capability by using deep learning to analyze past transactions down to the cardholder level. Thus the transaction decision that Smarter STIP provides is based on unique insights derived from the cardholder’s past purchasing behavior, rather than solely on static rules applied across an entire card portfolio. With this added intelligence, Visa is able to provide a transaction decision on the issuer’s behalf that more closely mirrors the issuer’s own decision making process—with the potential to decrease transaction declines for cardholders by up to 50% in some cases.¹

Harnessing AI for the Payments Ecosystem

Visa Smarter STIP is one of several new real-time deep learning capabilities designed to solve long-standing challenges and pain points for buyers, sellers, and financial institutions.

These enhanced services are made possible by the investments Visa has made to optimize its core infrastructure. This includes a scalable, high-performing, GPU-based platform designed to support the rapid deployment of deep learning capabilities.

“AI is one of the most transformative technologies of our time, giving us the power to build data-driven products that deliver new levels of insight and personalization. With one of the largest and richest data sets in the world, Visa is extremely well positioned to unlock the full potential of AI for our clients and cardholders, and at massive scale,” says Rajat Taneja, president of technology at Visa. “We’ve made significant investments in our infrastructure, making it possible to harness this data more deeply across all facets of VisaNet. Our data, combined with low-latency architecture and our unique modeling capabilities, make our technology platform among the most powerful for AI.”​

Global adoption already underway

Smarter STIP will be available in October 2020 and has generated interest from a range of financial institutions around the world.

“At UBS, we believe in building a better future for our customers by harnessing the power of innovation and collaboration—a continuous process that relies on innovative thinking and transformative technologies and capabilities, developed both in-house and by our partners,” says Stefan Uebelhart, Head of UBS Card Center. “We are very pleased to launch Visa’s Smarter STIP service, as this is an example where the power of collaboration, transformative technologies and innovation come together to provide an improved experience for our cardholders. In our quest to build a better future for our customers, we see Visa as a valued partner and intend to work together in the innovation space.”

“As a leader in interest-free shopping platforms in Australia and New Zealand, Latitude Financial is constantly exploring new technology and innovation so we can deliver the best possible service to our customers,” said Latitude’s Chief Commercial Officer, Paul Varro. “Visa’s Smarter STIP service helps us substantially improve transaction approval rates. This is a great outcome, cleverly bringing together AI with our historical authorisation learnings, new datasets, and Visa’s experience in transaction processing to provide a rich customer experience, all the time.”

About Smarter STIP

Visa created the Smarter STIP capability to address a key pain point for issuers and issuer processors: the suboptimal experience for cardholders during service disruptions. Visa’s novel approach to stand-in processing, recognized through a US Patent in 2019, improves on the existing STIP capability through real-time evaluation of cardholder-level features. The model relies on:

• Multiple recurrent neural networklayers with millions of parameters.


• Billions of historical records to train the model, resulting in an average 95% accuracy in emulating an issuer’s likely decision in Visa’s sample tests².


• Continuous learning from real time transaction and outage data, allowing the service to adapt and improve as an Issuers’ behavior changes over time​.

Visa Smarter STIP does not require any technical change for clients to participate. Issuers connected to Visa DPS will be enabled for Smarter STIP when the service launches globally in October 2020.

About Visa Inc.

Visa Inc. (NYSE: V) is the world’s leader in digital payments. Our mission is to connect the world through the most innovative, reliable and secure payment network - enabling individuals, businesses and economies to thrive. Our advanced global processing network, VisaNet, provides secure and reliable payments around the world, and is capable of handling more than 65,000 transaction messages a second. The company’s relentless focus on innovation is a catalyst for the rapid growth of digital commerce on any device for everyone, everywhere. As the world moves from analog to digital, Visa is applying our brand, products, people, network and scale to reshape the future of commerce. For more information, visit About Visa,visa.com/blog and @VisaNews.

---

¹ Based on Visa internal analysis comparing existing and Smarter STIP approval rates of all transactions in Q1 CY2020 for a single US Issuer.
² This number was measured by Visa’s internal simulation of the Smarter STIP model offline on transactions for all Visa BINs globally in Q4 2019. On average, the Smarter STIP model made the same approve/decline decision as the issuers 95% of the time, for transactions across all regions.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200826005289/en/

Visa Selects Fintech Firm Payswiff as Winner of Visa Everywhere Initiative 2020 in India

Visa (NYSE: V), the global leader in payments technology, today announced Payswiff as the grand winner of the first Visa Everywhere Initiative (VEI) challenge in India. With participation from more than 260 fintechs and 400+ applications, a record number for any VEI program outside the US, the Initiative had challenges focused on digital issuance for driving access to payments and credit, increasing small merchants’ acceptance and digitally transforming B2B payments.

While Payswiff won for its solution of providing end-to-end omni channel electronic payments to banks, SMEs and enterprise merchants, Phi Commerce won the challenge on digital issuance through integrated payments across channels and Samunnati won the challenge on B2B payments for a solution specializing in the Agri-value chain. The challenges were part of the first Indian edition of the Visa Everywhere Initiative – a leading global innovation program for identifying and collaborating with fintechs to produce cutting-edge solutions to digital payment challenges, in addition to enhancing their product propositions and providing payment solutions for Visa’s vast network of partners.

TR Ramachandran, Group Country Manager for India & South Asia, Visa said, “Our hearty congratulations to Payswiff, the grand winner of the first ever Visa Everywhere Initiative in India. We would also like to congratulate Phi Commerce and Samunnati, the winners of the two other challenges. Through VEI, we were on the lookout to collaborate with fintechs that are creating agile, secure and seamless payment experiences, thereby putting completely new and evolved payment experiences into the hands of consumers and businesses. We are happy to have engaged with this vibrant community and look forward to creating unique payment experiences for India.”

He further added, “It is a fact that India is the hotbed of payment innovation and are going to further push the envelope in inventive payments. While VEI is a platform to enable fintechs to enhance and take their innovative solutions to market faster, we are privileged to nurture the companies who are redefining the way India pays.”

After seven months of scouting for the most talented fintechs across the country by hosting roadshows, the pitch day was held in Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru and Hyderabad for shortlisting fintechs under each of the three challenges. Visa invited nine finalists for a virtual presentation, in light of the current pandemic, to pitch their ideas to a panel of judges which included executives from Visa, their partners and leading fintech organizations.

“The entire VEI journey has been an exciting experience for us at Visa. It has also been a culmination of our last three years of fintech outreach - starting with Visa Developer Platform in 2017, followed by the Visa Ready Program and Fintech FastTrack launches in 2019 – as we continue to open up for business with Indian fintechs and take them to a global stage,” said Arvind Ronta, Head of Products for India & South Asia, Visa.

“We congratulate the winners Payswiff, Phi Commerce and Samunnati and are excited to work with them closely and help commercialize their solutions through Visa’s expertise and capabilities,” added Arvind.

Since its inception in the US in 2015, VEI has expanded into a global platform with more than 6000+ participating startups, that have collectively raised over $2.5+ billion in funding, with more than 215 finalists and nearly 100 winners. The program has been rolled out in North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia, Middle East and Africa, touching over 100 countries.

For more information, visit Visa Everywhere Initiative.

Visa and Fintech Firm Zaggle to Jointly Create Payment Solutions for SMEs, Startups

Fintech startup Zaggle on Saturday said it has partnered with payments technology major Visa to launch innovative payment solutions for SMEs and startups. 

Under this partnership, both the companies will jointly create solutions for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and startups to improve productivity, efficiency and automate processes and reduce costs along with focusing on easy and faster credit through a unique card which will have forex, prepaid along with credit, Zaggle said in a statement.

Zaggle will leverage Visa's expertise in the payments space to co-create and build new solutions for SMEs and will also be able to acquire new customers and merchants and get the latter's support for newer technological innovations and ideas.

"This partnership will help us expand our services and client base who need to improve automation and digitise spends to bring in more transparency. In addition to this, our collaboration focuses on improving the working capital management of SMEs who are in dire need of a payment instrument that will help them optimize and improve cash flows for all their business expenses,” Zaggle founder Raj N Phani said. 

The platform adds over 600 SMEs every month, he said adding that with special focus on SMEs in the country which have been hardest hit due to this pandemic, it will be benefitted with a credit line, digitised spend and ability to borrow more by being able to show more digital transactions.

"SMEs remain the backbone of our economy. Now more than ever before, it has become more important for SMEs to assess how to best digitise their businesses," Arvind Ronta, Visa Head – Products, India and South Asia, said. 

One such innovation is the 'Founders Card', a credit card, which Zaggle is planning to launch founders and CEOs of SMEs and startups in the next 45-60 days.

Zaggle currently works with more than 3,000 large customers and will open this platform to a million SMEs and has recently announced free Zaggle SAVE Do-it-Yourself (DIY) AI Powered Expense Management Solution for SMEs along with other cutting-edge API Banking products. PTI SM

FPL Technologies Ties with Visa to launch Mobile 1st Credit Card for Millennials

FPL Technologies, a fintech startup focused on re-imagining credit and payments in India today announced its partnership with Visa to launch a mobile-first credit card in India. FPL will issue credit cards in partnership with banks and leverage Visa’s brand, technology and global acceptance footprint to make its credit card available for a wide range of use cases. The company recently raised US $4.5M from Matrix Partners, Sequoia Capital and other reputed angel investors.

FPL believes that consumption credit presents a very large opportunity in India and the credit card is the best product to offer consumption credit to India’s growing younger population. Card acceptance has trebled in the last three years after demonetisation and every category is getting digitized. Like the overall growth in adoption of digital payments, the adoption of credit cards too has grown, both in terms of card issuance and spends. However, the experience of using a credit card has not evolved to serve the digitally savvy young millennials.

FPL has created a proprietary full-stack technology platform to deliver a nex-gen credit card experience to its customers. Customers can use an intuitive mobile app along with their credit cards to manage every aspect of their credit life cycle. FPL launched the OneScore app in July this year to help customers understand and manage their credit score and behavior in a simple and secure way. The app has already acquired more than 400,000 users in the last 4 months. 

“We believe existing credit cards need to be more digital, flexible, transparent, and personalized to end-consumers to build scale. From the process of researching for a product, acquiring it, using it on a day to day basis and finally handling exceptions, we have set out to re-imagine every aspect from first principles using modern technology,” said Anurag Sinha, Co-founder & CEO FPL Technologies. 

T.R. Ramachandran, Group Country Manager, India and South Asia, Visa, said, “At Visa, we strongly believe Fintechs will play an important role in expanding the credit card market by innovating on propositions and leveraging technology to provide best-in-class user experience.  We are delighted to partner with FPL to bring to the market a mobile-first credit card that is designed keeping the millennial consumer in mind.

With India being home to the world’s largest population of millennials[1], estimated to spend $330 billion annually by 2020, this presents a massive opportunity for solutions that address the consumption behaviour of the segment like the one FPL has created."

About Visa Inc. 

Visa is a global payments technology company that connects consumers, businesses, financial institutions, and governments in more than 200 countries and territories to fast, secure and reliable electronic payments. We operate one of the world’s most advanced processing networks - VisaNet - that is capable of handling more than 65,000 transaction messages a second, with fraud protection for consumers and assured payment for merchants. Visa is not a bank and does not issue cards, extend credit or set rates and fees for consumers. Visa’s innovations, however, enable its financial institution customers to offer consumers more choices: pay now with debit, ahead of time with prepaid or later with credit products. 

About FPL Technologies

FPL Technologies was founded by Anurag Sinha, Rupesh Kumar and Vibhav Hathi, who come from banking backgrounds with deep expertise in payments, credit and building and scaling digital businesses. FPL is on a mission to re-imagine credit and payments from first principles and has raised US $4.5M from Matrix Partners, Sequoia Capital and reputed angel investors. FPL has launched OneScore app to help people monitor their credit score in a simple, secure way without any spam.The app can be downloaded from www.onescore.app 

[1]India’s Millennials to Recast Economy in Own Tech Savvy Image – Morgan Stanley
[1]Morgan Stanley report of April 2017

Visa Ropes in Google's Head of Branding Sujatha V Kumar as Head of Marketing for India & South Asia

Visa, the global leader in digital payments technology, today announced the appointment of Sujatha V Kumar as Head of Marketing for India and South Asia. She will be driving overall marketing strategy and execution including consumer, retail and digital marketing initiatives for India and the emerging markets of Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal and the Maldives.

Prior to this, Sujatha was with Google as Head – Brand & Reputation, Marketing and Strategy. She brings to Visa over 20 years of experience and extensive knowledge of consumer insights, brand development, go-to-market approaches, category management, retail strategy and promotions. Sujatha started her career at Procter & Gamble and, over the years, has gathered rich experience in sales and marketing across companies such as Gillette, Nokia, The Royal Bank of Scotland and Coca-Cola.

"Our people are the most important asset for us at Visa. As we work towards transforming and strengthening India’s digital payment ecosystem, Sujatha joins us with a diverse range of experience from the continuously evolving digital space. We are excited to welcome her to the Visa family and with her expertise, aim to build a robust brand leadership in the space we operate in” Visa’s Group Country Manager, India & South Asia, TR Ramachandran said.

"We congratulate Sujatha and are very excited to bring an accomplished marketer to Visa. With her strong data and creative skills, we aim to fulfill our vision of being the most creative data-led marketer in the world" said Frederique Covington, SVP Head of Marketing & Cross Border Asia Pacific, Visa.

"I am delighted to join the Visa family and play my part in our exciting consumer and customer facing journey of innovative, data-based marketing. I have always admired Visa as a brand and am excited at the opportunity to be a part of this team.

We live in an increasingly growing digital society and I am looking to leverage my past experience in bridging the gap between digital disruption and consumer engagement to build trusted brands.” said Sujatha V Kumar, Visa’s newly appointed Head of Marketing for India and South Asia said.

A graduate in Psychology, Sujatha holds an MBA in Marketing. Based in Mumbai, Sujatha will join Visa’s India and South Asia Leadership Team.

InstaReM Joins Visa Fintech Fast-Track Program; Support to Indian Startups Setting Base in S'Pore

InstaReM announced that it is joining the global payments technology major Visa’s Fintech fast-track program in the Asia-Pacific region.

With this partnership, InstaReM gets access to Visa’s vast payments network. InstaReM’s Indian and other global fintech partners desirous of opening an office in Singapore can now ride on InstaReM’s digital ecosystem for payments and remittances. These fintech start-ups need not go through the hassle of getting relevant local licenses in Singapore.

InstaReM (short for Instant Remittance) is a leading digital cross-border payments company that enables consumers, businesses and banks to make international money transfers at a low cost. As part of the Visa fintech fast-track, the two companies will work together to build new solutions for moving money to and from different countries in fast, convenient ways that provide users with seamless digital payments and money transfer experiences.

Prajit Nanu, co-founder, and CEO of InstaReM, said, “It’s a matter of pride for InstaReM to be a part of the Visa fintech fast-track program. We will draw from Visa’s vast network and experience in payments services in Asia-Pacific and other regions. With this partnership, InstaReM will be able to issue cards for its fintech/start-up partners in Singapore in just four weeks of them being in the program. InstaReM’s partners looking to be a part of the payments and remittances ecosystem in Singapore will not have to wait for six-to-nine months that it takes currently."

“Even with all the digital forms of payment that exist today, transferring money internationally can still be a time-consuming, inefficient process,” said Hamish Moline, Head of Digital Partnerships, Asia Pacific, Visa. “We’re excited to welcome InstaReM to the Visa fintech fast-track program and to work with them on tackling an area of payments where there is still a lot of opportunities to bring innovation to the customer experience.”

The Visa fintech fast-track program makes it easier for fintechs to access the global Visa payments network. The program is part of Visa’s global strategy to open up its network and support a broad range of players that are developing new commerce experiences. The fintech fast-track program provides a new commercial framework that includes eased access to Visa’s payment capabilities and streamlined processes to support companies of different sizes and at different growth phases. For more information, visit Visa Fintech Fast-Track.

Founded in 2014 by Prajit Nanu and
Michael Bermingham, InstaReM is a Singapore-headquartered digital cross-border payments company with presence across Asia-Pacific, North America, and Europe. InstaReM has created a unique payments mesh which is being leveraged by financial institutions, SMEs and individuals to make fast, low-cost cross-border payments available to more than 55+ countries. InstaReM is the first non-bank company to get the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) approval to offer outbound money transfer services from India.

InstaReM also serves institutional and corporate clients with its international business payments platform providing bulk, customized, multi-currency payment facilities. Since starting operations in 2015, InstaReM has raised US$ 38 million in three rounds of funding.

Instarem's investors include Global Founders Capital, Vertex Ventures, Fullerton Financial Holdings, GSR Ventures, SBI-FMO Emerging Asia Financial Sector Fund, MDI Ventures and Beacon Venture Capital. InstaReM is also a member of RippleNet, Ripple's global network of 200+ banks and other financial institutions, and a winner of Ripple’s Blockchain Innovator Award for innovations in the payments space.