Visa to transform payments in Europe with Visa Direct – a real-time payments platform with global reach

Visa has announced the European launch of Visa Direct – a real-time payments platform that allows companies to leverage Visa’s global reach and scale to transform domestic and cross-border payments for businesses and consumers. Visa is working with payment service providers, financial institution clients and strategic partners to roll out services using Visa Direct.

Visa Direct enables person-to-person (P2P), business-to-consumer (B2C), and business-to-business (B2B) payments. With Visa Direct, funds can be transferred into the recipient’s Visa account quickly, conveniently, and securely – providing instant access to funds² and the ability to make purchases at 44 million retail locations worldwide.

Visa has partnered with Worldpay, a global leader in payments processing technology and solutions for merchants, to accelerate the availability of Visa Direct to merchants in Europe and subsequently across all of its markets globally. Once recipient banks make required changes to their systems, ³ Visa Direct will enable Worldpay’s merchants to send real-time payments to consumers – improving customer satisfaction.

“For decades, Visa has led the way in transforming the way we pay in stores and online. Now, we have an opportunity to transform how consumers and business pay each other in a fast, convenient and secure way,” said Mike Lemberger, Senior Vice President of Product Solutions, Visa in Europe. “Visa Direct is a proven platform that enables technology companies, businesses and financial institutions to meet the demand for real-time payments, backed by the ubiquity, cost-efficiency and speed of Visa’s global network.”

Dave Glaser, Chief Product Officer, Global eCom at Worldpay said: “In recent years, the payments landscape has changed dramatically with clients and consumers alike expecting to be able to make a payment under their own terms – whether that is making a real-time payment or using a specific method. We are proud to be working with Visa on this unrivalled platform as an early adopter in Europe and other global markets and believe that Visa Direct is an important step in meeting those needs – providing both acquirers and merchants with the tools they need.”

Visa Direct is expected to transform payments in Europe by enabling a range of real-time payment use cases backed by the security and scale of Visa’s global payment network, including:

• Business-to-consumer: enabling businesses to send almost any kind of payment directly to a Visa account – such as gaming winnings, insurance payouts, and daily merchant settlements.
• Business-to-business: enabling businesses to pay freelancers, contractors, and other small businesses – in real time.
• Person-to-person: enabling consumers to pay each other quickly, conveniently, and securely, often through their connected devices – such as when splitting bills or giving gifts.

In the US, Visa Direct is already enabling payments for partners such as PayPal, Braintree, Square Cash, and Stripe.

Visa Direct is one of the many Application Program Interface (API)-based network capabilities available on the Visa Developer Platform – an open platform intended to drive innovation in payments and commerce. The 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.

About Visa Direct

The Visa Direct platform is available in more than 200 markets around the world and can be used to reach more than one billion consumer card accounts globally. Available through a comprehensive Visa Direct API library, financial institutions and technology partners can quickly build real-time payment solutions through a feature-rich suite of web services on the Visa Developer Platform.

Visa in Europe has announced a mandate that requires card issuers to enable real-time payments by October 2018. Real-time payments allow funds to be sent by issuers to cardholders no later than 30 minutes from a transaction being approved.

More information about the Visa Developer Platform can be found at https://developer.visa.com/. More information about Visa Direct can be found at www.visa.com/visadirect.

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 connected commerce on any device, and a driving force behind the dream of a cashless future for everyone, everywhere. As the world moves from analogue to digital, Visa is applying our brand, products, people, network and scale to reshape the future of commerce. For more information, visit (www.visaeurope.com), the Visa Vision blog (vision.visaeurope.com), and @VisaInEurope

About Worldpay

Worldpay is a leading payments company with global reach. We provide an extensive range of technology-led payment products and services to around 400,000 customers, enabling their businesses to grow and prosper. We manage the increasing complexity of the payments landscape for our customers, allowing them to accept the widest range of payment types around the world. Using our network and technology, we are able to process payments from geographies covering 99% of global GDP, across 146 countries and 126 currencies. We help our customers to accept more than 300 different payment types.

For more information, visit http://www.worldpay.com/global

¹ Actual fund availability varies by financial institution.

² Actual fund availability varies by financial institution.

³ Visa in Europe has announced a mandate that requires card issuers to enable real-time payments by October 2018.

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Contact information

Visa
Leela Shanson
europeanmedia@visa.com
+44 (0)20 7795 5336