Visa Opens its Global Network with Launch of Visa Developer

Today in San Francisco Visa announced the launch of Visa Developer, a milestone that transforms the world’s largest retail payments network to an open platform that will drive innovation in payments and commerce.

And Visa’s timing couldn’t be better.

Although the financial services brand is not purchasing a national TV spot for Super Bowl Sunday, their brand footprint is all over the host city.

Visa has a host of game-time payment experiences planned for Levi’s Stadium to give fans attending Super Bowl 50 state-of-the-art payment experiences.

With regards to today’s Visa Developer announcement, for the first time in the company’s nearly 60 year history software developers will have open access to payments technology, products and services by Visa.

The new Visa Developer platform is designed to help financial institutions, merchants, and technology companies meet the demands of consumers and merchants, who increasingly rely on connected devices to shop, pay and get paid.

RELATED: Getting It Right: How Visa is Preparing for the Next Generation of Commerce

At launch, the new platform will offer access to some of Visa’s most popular payment technologies and services including account holder identification, person-to-person payment capabilities, secure in-store and online payment services such as Visa Checkout, currency conversion and consumer transaction alerts.

 

 

“As the leader in payments we have an opportunity to transform global commerce by opening-up access to our global network and supporting our clients, industry partners and innovators in their pursuit of creating new, easier and more secure ways to pay,” said Charlie Scharf, CEO of Visa Inc. “Visa Developer represents not only a new access point to our network, but a new distribution platform for Visa products and services globally.”

Visa’s SVP of Global New Product, Mark Jamison, shared his thoughts on today’s announcement on the Visa Developer blog. “One of the core reasons we are so excited about today’s public launch is because Visa Developer is not a test or labs initiative like others in the space have done. Exactly the opposite, Visa Developer is launching as a key pillar of our go-to-market strategy and is designed to transform how Visa enables developers to deliver distinctive value to your customers”.

Over the past few months leading financial institutions, technology companies, and startups have participated in beta trials of the new Visa Developer platform and many have already created innovative prototype applications using Visa technology. Trial partners include Canadian banks CIBC, RBC, TD Bank, and Scotiabank.