Visa

Visa Mobile

At our core, Visa is a global technology company that has enabled the growth of electronic commerce for more than 50 years. Our vision continues to be: Be the best way to pay and be paid – for everyone, everywhere.

Visa continues to promote economic growth and remove friction in commerce around the world by enabling a shift from paper to electronic payments. We invest in new technologies, like mobile, and collaborate with leaders in the mobile industry to extend the benefits of electronic commerce to more people in more places.

Developing Markets

Nowhere is this more apparent than in developing economies where mobile penetration outpaces bank card availability. Using existing mobile devices to access and transfer funds, pay bills or top-up wireless air time, mobile financial services represent a “leapfrog” technology in these underserved regions and a significant driver of financial inclusion. It enables Visa and our partners in the mobile and financial services industry to give unbanked consumers access to formal financial services, usually for the first time in their lives.

Fundamo

In 2011, Visa acquired Fundamo – a leading mobile money platform that enables financial institutions and mobile network operators in more than 40 developing countries to offer mobile subscribers basic financial services – including person-to-person payments, top-up wireless airtime services, and mobile bill payments. Fundamo extends the reach of Visa’s network, payments products and services to unbanked and under-banked consumers in developing economies that enjoy a high degree of mobile adoption but lack traditional electronic payments infrastructure. Visa’s acquisition of Fundamo has created a best in class, bank-grade, mobile payments platform that benefits consumers, merchants, financial institutions and mobile network operators in developing countries.

Visa Mobile Prepaid

Today, as we continue to expand our business globally, we have a tremendous opportunity to deliver new payment products to meet the unique needs of unbanked and under-banked consumers in developing countries. In 2011, as a result of the integration of Fundamo’s mobile payments platform with Visa’s global payment network, Visa launched a new prepaid account that can be accessed through a mobile phone. The new product is offered to mobile subscribers in developing countries and significantly enhances the functionality of existing, closed-loop mobile money services by making them interoperable with Visa’s global payment network.

The result is a new, mobile-based Visa product that continues to offer the benefits of a closed-loop payment service (cash-in/out, person to person transfers, bill payment) while at the same time providing consumers a payment account that offers Visa’s high standards of security, reliability and global interoperability.

Visa Mobile Managed Service

In 2013, Visa launched a new plug-and-play mobile money platform that makes it easy and cost-efficient for mobile operators, banks and micro-lending organizations in developing countries to offer mobile financial services to consumers.

Visa Mobile Managed Service is the world’s first bank-grade managed service for mobile money and allows Visa to host and fully manage all aspects of a mobile money program on behalf of a provider, from user interface design to consumer enrollment, transactions processing, authorization, clearing and settlement.

Built on Fundamo’s technology, the leading mobile money platform acquired by Visa in 2011, Visa Mobile Managed Service offers Visa’s high standards of security, reliability and interoperability while allows mobile network operators and financial institutions to focus on their core business, while leaving the management of their mobile money service to Visa.

And Beyond

In developed economies, Visa and its partners are delivering mobile services that enhance the consumer payment experience and provide mobile access to existing credit, debit and prepaid accounts. Services already available in developed countries include mobile payments at both the physical point of sale and on the mobile web, merchant offers tailored to the customer’s lifestyle and geographic location, and transaction alerts instantly delivered via SMS text message.

Mobile Payments

• Visa payWave – Visa’s mobile payment application transforms mobile phones into payment devices, enabling consumers to pay by simply waving their smartphone in front of a wireless payment terminal. Visa payWave is compatible with NFC (Near Field Communication) technology, the short range communications standard that enables mobile phones to securely transmit payment information to a contactless payment terminal.
• Mobile eCommerce – Visa is simplifying the consumer purchase experience when shopping on the mobile web using a smartphone. V.me by Visa, Visa’s new digital wallet service, simplifies the check-out experience on the mobile web allowing consumers to complete transactions by simply entering user name and password.
• Mobile Transaction Alerts – Visa Near real-time alerts directly delivered via SMS text to a cardholder's mobile device. Alerts are based on user-set transaction parameters such as transaction size, international transaction or eCommerce transaction.
• Mobile Merchant Offers – Opt-in promotional information and mobile coupons based on consumer interests, location and lifestyle. Consumers are able to redeem mobile offers linked to their Visa account by simply presenting a SMS text message on the mobile device.