Visa Europe has been providing European cardholders and merchants with a reliable and secure payment network for many decades; first as an association with European bank owners and now as a private company headquartered in Europe with branches and offices across the continent.
Payments are a critical enabler of commerce and economic growth and as Europeans have increasingly embraced digital payments, we have been there every step of the way – contributing to national digitalisation and modernisation efforts through our innovations such as contactless, tokenisation and authentication technology. This has ensured that Europeans have access to world-class payment experiences while being offered the highest levels of resilience and protection from fraud. Tapping to ride public transport? Paying securely online? Need support when you haven’t received your goods? Visa Europe has been there leading the way and will continue to be there.
We pride ourselves on delivering a resilient, global network with multiple layers of security and a local focus, to enable buyers and sellers to connect and trade in ways in which they can have confidence and trust.
Trust is foundational to payments. It allows buyers and sellers to transact with confidence, where parties are unknown to each other and across borders. Visa’s network works to ensure money goes where it should, in near real time, with extremely low levels of fraud. If something goes wrong, we provide cardholder and merchant protections to obtain redress.
Being present in Europe, and being European, is the best way for us to serve our clients and partners in the region, as it allows us to deliver our global reach, scale and security combined with local expertise and knowledge.
Visa’s presence in Europe continues to grow. Since 2020, our European headcount has increased by over 50%, with major offices in Warsaw - where we recently created our digital technology hub - Madrid, Frankfurt, Stockholm, Paris and Amsterdam. Today, our Europe business covers Visa operations in 38 countries, from Iceland to Turkey. Visa Europe has 29 offices employing more than 6,000 people, and we are planning further expansion in the region.
Our commitment to deliver trust will not waiver. So today we outline five pledges that continue to guide us as we show up for Europeans, something we have done continuously for decades.
We will use the power of global data to keep European consumers, merchants and financial institutions safe from ever-growing cyber and fraud threats. At the same time, we will seek every opportunity to protect European personal data to the highest possible standards. This includes maintaining and enhancing robust third-party lifecycle management processes to ensure such data is protected.
We will work alongside clients, and Government partners, to support a competitive and sustainable digital growth environment to help European firms scale and build the next generation of regional champions. This includes ensuring our technology, products and services are available to users on equal terms – from established platform companies to small local merchants.
We will ensure that Visa members can continue to access our global network resilience through access points based in Europe, managed and governed regionally. We commit to maintaining the highest levels of network availability and to strengthen resilience and prevent payment disruption by standing in for others to continue payment processing or facilitating ‘offline’ payments in crisis situations.
We will continue to share our cyber threat intelligence with European authorities, as well as our learnings from around the world about how security and user experience can be balanced to promote secure and sustainable digital growth.
We will continue to reduce fraud through deploying our security capabilities, furthering trust in digital payments and helping European merchants deliver commerce solutions that meet their consumers’ needs. We will minimise fraud across new and emerging technologies and use cases, giving European buyers and sellers access to the best of global innovation and the convenience of global payment acceptance.
For more than six decades, we've been proud to provide the safest, most resilient way to pay and be paid. We're excited to introduce further innovations for decades to come, improving the lives of Europeans and enabling the whole industry to deliver better and safer consumer experiences.