Visa Expands Fintech Connect Marketplace

Need to Know

• Visa’s Fintech Partner Connect, which launched in Europe last year, is now available in the US, Asia Pacific, Latin America, Central Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.
• The program helps banks quickly connect with a vetted set of tech companies and fintech, which include Canopy, Fintel Connect, and Alloy, among other companies.
• Visa is hoping to contradict the “us vs. them” mindset of fintech disruption by partnering traditional banks with tech partners.

Analysis

Visa is making it easier for banks around the world to connect with innovative fintechs.

On May 26, Visa announced the expansion of Visa Fintech Partner Connect, a program designed to help banks and other financial institutions connect with “a vetted and curated” set of technology providers. Visa Fintech Partner Connect launched in Europe last year and is now being expanded to the US, Asia Pacific, Latin America, Central Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.

Within the program tech providers are available in five categories: account opening, data aggregation, analytics and security, customer engagement and new cardholder services, and operations and compliance. Visa clients can connect with program partners directly via the Visa Partner website, and may receive benefits such as reduced program implementation fees and pricing discounts.

According to a press release announcing the program expansion, the program aims to streamline the tech discovery process, which will help Visa’s issuing partners “create digital-first experiences without the cost and complexity of building the back-end technology in-house.” Current program partners include Canopy, Fintel Connect, GoodData, Middesk, and Alloy, among others.

“In today’s climate, building a competitive financial product requires more technology than ever before. Consumers want seamless interactions across mobile and web, and they want access to a greater suite of digital banking capabilities,” Terry Angelos, senior vice president and global head of fintech at Visa, said in a statement. “We’ve assembled a community of payment and banking technology platforms to streamline the discovery and procurement process for our clients—with the ultimate goal of accelerating adoption of digital-first innovations.”

The program makes it easy for traditional banking institutions to leverage the technology being developed by innovative fintechs, moving past what Angelos calls an “us vs. them” mentality.

“So much of fintech focus and coverage is about disrupting existing banks. Everyone is trying to disrupt everyone, including fintechs like PayPal,” Angelos said in an interview with TechCrunch. “Venture numbers are certainly very large. What we’re realizing is there is a significant opportunity to pair up a lot of venture-backed companies with our existing clients. It runs a little bit against us versus them approach you typically hear about.”

The expansion is just the latest in a series of digital-forward announcements from Visa. Most recently, the company announced that it would be allowing payment settlements via crypto. In January, Visa revealed that it had expanded its partnership with TransferWise, and late last year, in November, the company launched virtual card capabilities for businesses, in a partnership with Confirma Pay aimed at streamlining increasingly virtual B2B payments processes.