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Tag: Visa

  • Nigeria’s ThriveAgric becomes 2022 Global Winner of Visa Everywhere Initiative

    Nigeria’s ThriveAgric becomes 2022 Global Winner of Visa Everywhere Initiative

    The Visa Everywhere Initiative (VEI), a global open innovation program and competition for start-ups and fintech companies, has named ThriveAgric, an innovative Nigerian start-up, as its winner. ThriveAgric is promoting the use of technology to change the payments landscape for the agricultural sector.

    An open innovation program called the Visa Everywhere Initiative gives startups a global stage to showcase their ground-breaking innovations while also assisting them in seizing new opportunities.

    The initiative was initially introduced in the United States in 2015 but swiftly gained international traction. A total of more than $16 billion has been raised in funding for more than 8,500 start-ups so far.

    Read also: ThriveAgric Unveils Online Marketplace To Help One Million Small Farmers Thrive

    Visa Everywhere Initiative 2022

    Prior to the global final, which is presently taking place in Qatar during the FIFA World Cup 2022, there was a year-long tournament in which business owners from around the world competed in regional finals.

    “A new fintech generation is transforming the way consumers and businesses make payments, making it easier for more people to access and move money when they need it. We congratulate ThriveAgric and all the winners in this year’s competition, and we look forward to continuing partnering with fintechs to solve the payments challenges of tomorrow,” Andrew Torre continued.

    Ruben Salazar, Senior Vice President and global head of Visa Direct, said: “As we strive to create more ways for people, SMBs, and larger businesses to participate in the global economy, the Visa Everywhere Initiative competition provides a unique insight into how fintech are helping shape the future of money movement and expanding access to underserved markets and regions. Today’s Visa Direct Award winner will have access to modern tools and teams that help enable global money movement to billions of endpoints worldwide.”

    To honor the creative fintechs and their solutions, the event included thought leaders from Visa and the industry, as well as a past Visa Everywhere Initiative winner. With special guest Visa’s Dr Saeeda Jaffar serving as Group Country Manager for the GCC region, the 2021 Visa Everywhere Initiative North America and Global winners Wade Arnold, founder and CEO of Moov Financial, and Marcel Desailly, a football great, had a fireside talk with Dr Jaffar.

    The co-founder of ThriveAgric and competition winner for the CEMEA region, Ayo Arikawe, gave his pitch on how ThriveAgric is facilitating strategic partnerships with financial institutions and players in the agriculture value chain to offer smallholders access to financial services, agricultural inputs, extension, market linkage, e-commerce, and payment services.

    Visa Everywhere Initiative Award Winners

    1st place and Visa Direct prize: ThriveAgric – an agric-tech organization providing smallholder farmers access to finance, insight, and distribution from Nigeria.

    2nd place: Zeti – a fintech enabling pay-per-use financing of sustainable transport from Europe

    Audience Favorite: Huli – a platform that connects patients, doctors, and other healthcare services from Latin America.

    All start-ups with creative solutions to the payments and commerce problems of the future are welcome to participate in the Visa Everywhere Initiative. Additionally, it supports fintech and startups in two ways:

    1. As a competition, it offers them a platform on which to present their solutions to a group of payments industry professionals, win prizes, and attract more attention to the field.
    2. It acts as a program that connects startups to our extensive network of partners. Our Visa teams may access this network from anywhere in the world while seeking for solutions.
  • Visa, Thunes to Facilitate Cross border payments

    Visa, Thunes to Facilitate Cross border payments

    Visa has partnered with Thunes, a global payments company based in Singapore, to facilitate cross-border payments to 78 digital wallet providers, allowing access to 1.5 billion digital wallets in 44 countries. With this new partnership, Visa Direct will now be available to 1.5 billion digital wallets, 2 billion accounts, and 3 billion cards.

    Digital wallets are becoming popular as an enabling initial entry point into the financial system for unbanked individuals in developing nations. Due to the fact that a digital wallet does not require users to have a credit card or bank account to add or withdraw money, it may help underprivileged communities access financial services that can improve their quality of life.

    According to Ruben Salazar Genovez, Global Head of Visa Direct, “Visa seeks to develop new alternatives for people and SMBs to engage in the global economy, from an agricultural worker in Bangladesh to a young professional in London who is seeking to transfer money to relatives abroad.” We’re thrilled to collaborate with Thunes to make it easier for people all around the globe to utilize digital wallets as their main means of financial transactions.

    Read also: Finastra and Visa Launch Global BaaS Offering via Visa Direct Integration

    This partnership will allow Thunes’ B2B payments technology to connect with Visa Direct, expanding its international send-to-wallet capabilities beyond the current 78 digital wallet providers. Financial institutions, governments, neobanks, and money transfer operators can take advantage of the new functionality by integrating Visa Direct. This will allow consumers and small businesses to send money to markets in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, where wallets may be the preferred payment method.

    The company dominates across regions with its services

    Peter De Caluwe, CEO of Thunes, expressed the company’s excitement at partnering with Visa, the world’s preeminent payment processor, on this launch. “Through the combined power of Visa’s scale and Thunes’ payment infrastructure, this collaboration has the potential to help develop a new global era for inclusive and accessible global payments.”

    Visa Direct now helps provide access to nearly 7 billion cards, accounts, and digital wallets combined across more than 190 geographies, supporting 160 currencies, connecting to 16 card-based networks, 66 domestic Automated Clearing House (ACH) schemes, 11 Real-Time Payment (RTP) networks, and five payment gateways. With the addition of 1.5 billion digital wallets to its reach, Visa Direct now helps provide access to nearly 7 billion cards, accounts, and digital wallets combined

    Top 10 Neobanks in Africa

    About Thunes

    Thunes was launched in 2016, and it is now in partnership with businesses including Uber, Deliveroo, Grab, PayPal, and Remitly to enable payments in 79 different currencies and to 130 different countries. In April 2022.

    The Startup acquired a majority share in Tookitaki, a firm that specializes in anti-money laundering solutions. As a result of this acquisition, Thunes is now able to provide sophisticated compliance, anti-fraud, and anti-money laundering (AML) capabilities.

  • Egyptian Fintech Geidea Partners With Visa To Accelerate Digital Payments

    Egyptian Fintech Geidea Partners With Visa To Accelerate Digital Payments

    Geidea, an Egyptian e-payments and fintech company, has announced a strategic partnership with Visa, one of the world’s largest digital payments companies, in order introduce Geidea’s cutting-edge payment solutions to the Egyptian market.

    The two companies signed long-term strategic cooperation to streamline the services that play a crucial role in the growth of Egypt’s payment industry by offering the merchants of the region and SMEs innovative services such as pay-by-phone and electronic trading services.

    As part of the strategic partnership, Visa will invest in improving Geidea’s POS terminals to accept more payment services, allowing the company to better serve merchants and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) throughout the nation by offering them more convenient and secure payment options.

    In line with Egypt’s Imaginative and prescient 2030, Geidea is “committed to aiding merchants and facilitating small companies to thrive in the digital financial system,” as disclosed by Geidea Egypt’s General Manager, Ahmed Nader. By supplying businesses with cutting-edge digital payment methods, our partnership with Visa will hasten digital transformation and monetary inclusion across the country. This will allow businesses to provide customers with a more convenient, secure, and streamlined checkout experience.

    Read also: Finastra and Visa Launch Global BaaS Offering via Visa Direct Integration

    Geidea seeks more partnerships to expand its operation

    According to Ahmed Magdy, senior business director of Geidea Egypt, the company plans to use cutting-edge e-payments technology to provide customers with reliable and secure “Faucet-on-Telephone” payment methods. Geidea’s robust infrastructure enables us to provide the fastest PoSs to merchants and SMEs.

    “Our company is continually seeking partners that can help us achieve our objective of offering people a seamless experience and the best possible solutions. As a result, we’re thrilled to partner with Visa, as Visa’s broad network is a major selling point for us in terms of providing our consumers with the most possible flexibility in their choices.

    “As a result, we’re thrilled to partner with Visa, as Visa’s broad network is a major selling point for us in terms of providing our consumers with the most possible flexibility in their choices,” he added

    Essam El Daly, Visa’s Head of Merchant Sales and Acquiring for North Africa, the Levant, and Pakistan, has stated, “Such strategic partnership enables us to advance the future of digital payments in the region, assuring smooth services to our customers and an enhanced market share for all of the parties involved.” These enabling tools are key to achieving the financial inclusion we seek through our work in Visa, as we carefully integrate the needs of both merchants and users in our solutions.”

    About Geidea

    Geidea is a leading and fully licensed payment service provider in the retail and online commerce industries, offering POS Terminals, business management solutions, and digital banking technology to financial institutions and small businesses alike. 

    The company was founded in 2008 by Saudi Arabian entrepreneur Abdullah Faisal Al-Othman with the goal of equipping merchants of all kinds and types with the resources they need to launch, manage, and grow their businesses. The company maintains the position that everyone should have easy access to cutting-edge financial and commercial technology that doesn’t break the bank. 

    Geidea, headquartered in Riyadh, has over 2000 employees and 150,000 merchants and provides support to over 700,000 fee terminals and ATM networks throughout the Kingdom, taking approximately 75% of the market share in the process. The company has also opened new branches in the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, and it has its sights set on opening in even more GCC countries in 2022.

    Orange Egypt Adds VISA To its Mobile Money Services

    About Visa Inc.

    Visa Inc. is the biggest player in the electronic payments industry, processing billions of dollars worth of yearly business between consumers, merchants, banks, and governments in more than 200 countries and territories. 

    The company’s goal is to facilitate the growth of individuals, businesses, and economies all across the globe by establishing an international monetary system that is the most advanced, convenient, reliable, and secure in the world.  Additionally, it believes that the future of monetary circulation lies in economies that are inclusive of and beneficial to all people everywhere.

  • Visa Gets New Manager to head its South Africa Operations

    Visa Gets New Manager to head its South Africa Operations

    Visa is a multinational company that helps people do business financially, has appointed Lineshree Moodley as the new Country Head for South Africa (SA). Lineshree will be a part of Visa’s Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) leadership team. She will make Visa’s growth strategy for the area and put it into action. SSA stands for Sub-Saharan Africa.

    Lineshree has worked for Visa in many different roles, including as the Head of Visa Consulting and Analytics for Sub-Saharan Africa and, most recently, as the Interim Cluster Country Head for Visa South Africa. Lineshree has worked in retail banking for more than 17 years and has greatly impacted how e-commerce has grown in Sub-Saharan Africa. Before she joined Visa, Lineshree was a Managing Director at Accenture Financial Services. In her new job, Lineshree will still be in charge of Visa’s operations in South Africa (SA).

    She has worked in retail banking for more than 17 years and has greatly impacted how e-commerce has grown in Sub-Saharan Africa. She has also helped mobile network providers and fintech companies in many different areas come up with plans to digitize payment systems across the continent.

    Read also: Finastra and Visa Launch Global BaaS Offering via Visa Direct Integration

    Lineshree is very committed to making sure that the commercial value that is unlocked in the financial services industry in South Africa and SSA has a direct and positive effect on the people, businesses, and economies in those areas.

    Visa’s goal is to keep building a solid regional team by matching a company’s and its employees’ unique skills with essential business opportunities. This is why they hired Lineshree.

    Aida Diarra, Senior Vice President at Visa and Head of Sub-Saharan Africa, commented on the new position by saying, “Lineshree’s appointment reflects the importance we place on supporting our clients and partners in the South African market.” Because of how wide and deep her experience is, she will be able to help us right away with our strategy and our plans to grow in the region and throughout Sub-Saharan Africa. We are excited about the opportunities that lie ahead and look forward to Lineshree leading our ongoing efforts to help speed up digital commerce in South Africa.

    Visa also previously appointed a head for West African Operations 

    In the future, Mr Andrew Uaboi will run Visa in the West African region, according to a statement from the company that handles payments.

    The organization says that hiring Mr Uaboi is part of its plan to build a robust regional team by matching different skills and assets with essential business opportunities.

    As part of his new job at Visa, the newly hired person will be a part of Visa’s leadership team for Sub-Saharan Africa and will be in charge of creating and putting Visa’s growth strategy in the area into action.

    “Hiring Andrew shows how much we care about the markets in West Africa and how much we want to help our customers and partners,” the company said.

    Because of how wide and deep his experience is, he will be able to help us quickly with our strategy and growth in the region and all over Sub-Saharan Africa. 

    Visa Unveils Its First African Innovation Studio in Kenya

    About Visa

    Visa Inc. is a company that provides financial services all over the world. It is based in the United States and has its main office in San Francisco, California. It makes it possible to make electronic fund transfers anywhere on the globe, the most frequent method being through credit cards, debit cards, and prepaid cards branded with the Visa name. Visa is consistently ranked as one of the most valuable firms in the world.

  • Finastra and Visa Launch Global BaaS Offering via Visa Direct Integration

    Finastra and Visa Launch Global BaaS Offering via Visa Direct Integration

    Finastra, a global FinTech company, and Visa Inc., the American multinational financial services corporation, have announced a Banking as a Service (BaaS) partnership with the goal of co-developing new features on its Payments Hub solutions and implementing Visa Direct, which gives users access to more than two billion accounts via push-to-account options.

    Because of this new feature, Finastra’s banking clients all over the world will have access to cross-border payment options for both individuals and small and medium-sized businesses. resource-intensiveresource-intensive, in addition to being costly. 

    Banks will be able to avoid these complexities by integrating with the Visa network through Finastra’s FusionFabric.cloud open development platform and taking advantage of the out-of-the-box processing capability offered by Finastra’s Payments Hub solutions. 

    Read also: Visa and Amazon Agree on Global Card Fees

    This capability is made possible by Visa Direct and is available on-premises or in the cloud as a SaaS offering. They will be able to pay their clients quickly, cheaply, and in a way that is clear and easy to understand.

    “Innovation in cross-border money movement is accelerating at an incredible pace, and banks are under pressure to quickly implement and launch programs for their customers that stay ahead of their expectations,” said Ruben Salazar Genovez, SVP, Global Head of Visa Direct.

    He also said, “We’re excited to work with Finastra to make it easy for their bank customers to use Lending, Payments, Treasury & Capital Markets, and Retail & Digital Banking to help banks support direct banking relationships while also growing through indirect channels like embedded finance and Banking as a Service.” It is trusted by 8,600 organizations, including 90 of the top 100 banks in the world, because of its innovative approach to open finance and cooperation.

    Quidax Launches 10% Interest US Dollar (USD) Savings Plan

    About Visa

    Visa is the world leader in digital payments, allowing people, businesses, banks, and governments in more than 200 countries and territories to send and receive money. Its goal is to connect people, businesses, and economies around the world by providing the most innovative, convenient, reliable, and safe payment network. They think that the most promising economies are ones that include everyone everywhere, give everyone everywhere power, and see access as a key part of the future of money mobility.

  • Visa Unveils Its First African Innovation Studio in Kenya

    Visa Unveils Its First African Innovation Studio in Kenya

    In recent years, Africa has become a destination for giant technology companies. Multinational corporations and governments have been creating innovation centers to develop new products through collaboration that remain competitive at a global level. The global payments company Visa has opened an Innovation Studio in Nairobi, Kenya.

    On April 6, the Governor of the Central Bank of Kenya, Dr Patrick Njoroge, officially opened the studio, which was attended by top banks, financial technology companies, and innovation experts from around Sub-Saharan Africa.

     

    Read Also : Leatherback Secures $10M For Global Expansion

     

    The new facility supports Visa’s commitment to promoting innovation and creating opportunities for clients and fintech partners to co-create market-relevant payment and commerce solutions throughout the region; and will serve the sub-Saharan Africa region and joins a network of innovation centres operated by Visa since 2016, in cities including London, Dubai, and Singapore. The Nairobi studio is the first in Africa and sixth globally.

     

    What Visa Has To Say About The New Studio

    Aida Diarra, Senior Vice President and Head of Visa in Sub-Saharan Africa, revealed that the studio would help grow the Visa market in the region by issuing digital and physical Visa to its customers.

    According to Diara — “Sub-Saharan Africa is a fast-growing region with a tech-savvy population, and as we continue to grow digital payments adoption in the region, our aspiration is to deepen our collaboration with clients and partners in developing solutions that are designed around the unique needs of Africa.”

    “As a brand built on technology, Visa has driven the major technological advancements that make electronic payments what they are today. We are confident that the innovation studio will continue that legacy and cement Sub-Saharan Africa’s position as a leader in creating out-of-the-box solutions to deal with our most pressing challenges as a region,” he added.

     

    Visa Previous Engagements in The Africa Tech Spec

    Visa has previously used its existing innovation hubs to build products for the African market, such as a partnership with Nigerian Fintech Paga to develop new merchant acceptance solutions based on QR codes and NFC technology.

    Last year, Visa partnered with Kenya’s largest telco Safaricom to allow M-Pesa’s 24 million users and 173,000 local merchants to be linked to Visa’s 61 million merchants and its more than 3 billion cards.

     

    Read Also : ZirooPay Raises $11.4M To Expand Its Mobile POS Solutions Across Nigeria

     

    Across Africa, giant tech companies continue to develop in the region. Last month, Microsoft launched a new office in Lagos. It’ll house its product engineering, ecosystem development, and innovation teams. In 2021, Huawei also announced plans to build an innovation and research centre in Tunisia.

    Similar innovation studios are operated by companies like Cisco and Philips in Nairobi, and the Kenyan government is building a technology metropolis called Konza City to foster innovation in the country.

    The launch of Visa’s first African innovation studio, as well as others, will help to enhance the African tech ecosystem by encouraging the conception, development, and implementation of innovative ideas.

  • Facebook sells its digital currency project

    Facebook sells its digital currency project

    Diem, the Facebook-backed digital currency project, has announced the sale of its technology for $182 million, capping a year-long initiative that attracted significant regulatory scrutiny.
    Facebook’s announcement in 2019 of plans to design a cryptocurrency and payment system raised immediate red flags for global finance officials, who expressed a barrage of criticism about the security and reliability of a private network.
    “The idea of Facebook doing a cryptocurrency was a bridge too far for regulators,” said analyst Rob Enderle of Enderle Group. They have made it clear they don’t trust Facebook with what they are doing now, we are not going to let it go into the money business.”
    Diem Networks’ US CEO Stuart Levey said in a statement that the initiative made progress, but “it nevertheless became clear from our dialogue with federal regulators that the project could not move ahead.”

    “Over the coming weeks, the Diem Association and its subsidiaries expect to begin the process of winding down,” the association’s statement said.
    The technology was bought by Silvergate Capital Corporation in California is a go-to for crypto projects, which put the sale price at $182 million.

    Silvergate bought development, deployment and operations infrastructure, as well as tools for running a blockchain-based payment network for payments as well as cross-border wire transfers.
    “As far as I can tell, Diem is dead,” Enderle said.
    “As we undertook this effort, we actively sought feedback from governments and regulators around the world, and the project evolved substantially and improved as a result,” the Diem association’s statement said. Facebook developed the technology, initially named Libra, and then entrusted control of the project to an independent entity based in Geneva.
    After the defection of several major partners such as PayPal, Visa and Mastercard, the organization scaled back its ambitions, before renaming itself Diem at the end of 2020.
    The so-called stable coin — a type of digital money tied to other kinds of assets — never launched. It was not clear what will become of related plans for Facebook-parent Meta to build a virtual wallet for holding cryptocurrency.
    “The combination of a stable coin issuer or wallet provider and a commercial firm could lead to an excessive concentration of economic power,” US regulators said in a 2021 report.
    “These policy concerns are analogous to those traditionally associated with the mixing of banking and commerce, such as advantages in accessing credit or using data to market or restrict access to products,” the report said.
    Facebook, which renamed itself, Meta, in October, has faced criticism on the dominant position it holds online, yet it’s not the only powerful organization interested in crypto.
    Creative Strategies analyst Carolina Milanesi wondered whether Libra-turned-Diem was, from the outset, part of Facebook’s vision of being a platform for the metaverse. “Cryptocurrency is going to get into the metaverse one way or another,” Milanesi said.
    “Maybe that is what Facebook is counting on and decided to leave the headache to someone else.”
    People are already buying real estate in immersive, virtual worlds referred to as the metaverse.
    The European Central Bank in July formally launched a pilot project to create a “digital euro,” in response to the growing popularity of electronic payments and the rise of cryptocurrencies. Central banks are also responding to increased demand for digital payment options as cash use continues to decline, a trend fueled by the pandemic and the desire to avoid contact.
    “There is a lot of distrust surrounding cryptocurrency, and a lot of us in the industry are convinced it is a big Ponzi scheme,” Enderle said. The Diem asset sale “is another red flag on crypto,” he added.

     

  • Visa and Mastercard have suspended access to their networks to Russian banks in the aftermath of Russia’s sanctions.

    Visa and Mastercard have suspended access to their networks to Russian banks in the aftermath of Russia’s sanctions.

    Visa and Mastercard have blocked financial institutions from their networks in response to sanctions imposed on Russia following its invasion of Ukraine.

    Russia launched an unprecedented invasion of Ukraine last week, prompting the United States and governments around the world to impose a slew of sanctions aimed at cutting Moscow off from the global financial system.

    The United States placed a number of Russian individuals and financial institutions on a sanctions list known as the Specially Designated Nationals list last week. It effectively prohibits American companies and individuals from doing business with any individual or entity on that list. On Monday, Washington sanctioned Russia’s central bank.

    Mastercard announced on Monday that it had “blocked multiple financial institutions” from its payment network, without naming any companies or individuals. “In the days ahead, we will continue to work with regulators to fully comply with our compliance obligations as they evolve,” the company added.

    Visa has also blocked those on the sanctions list, stating on Tuesday that it is “taking prompt action to ensure compliance with applicable sanctions, and are prepared to comply with any additional sanctions that may be implemented.”

    Both Visa and Mastercard have pledged $2 million in humanitarian relief funds for Ukraine.

    It comes after the United States, Canada, and their European allies agreed on Saturday to remove key Russian banks from the SWIFT interbank messaging system. It means that Russian banks will be unable to communicate securely with banks located outside of Russia.

    The Russian ruble has plummeted in value as a result of the broad-based sanctions. Russians have also been queuing in long lines to withdraw cash from ATMs.

    Meanwhile, Ukraine’s Vice Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov has urged major cryptocurrency exchanges to block Russian users’ addresses.

    Because cryptocurrencies are not owned or controlled by a single entity like a central bank, they could become a way for Russians to potentially circumvent sanctions and get their money out of the country.

    Binance, the world’s largest exchange, has stated that it will block the accounts of sanctioned Russian individuals but has stressed that it will not “unilaterally” freeze the accounts of all Russian users.