Visa Incorporated has 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.
For the first time in the company’s nearly 60 year history, software application developers will have open access to industry leading 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.
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. Visa plans to provide access to more of its payment capabilities over the next year.
“As the leader in payments we have an opportunity to transform global commerce by opening-up access to our global network and supportingour clients, industry partners and innovators in their pursuit of creating new, easier and more secure ways to pay,” said Charlie Scharf, chief executive officer, 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.”
Over the past few months leading financial institutions, technology companies, and start-ups have participated in beta trials of the new Visa Developer platform andmany have already created innovative prototype applications using Visa technology.
Trial partners include Capital One, CIBC, Emirates NBD, National Australia Bank (NAB), RBC, TD Bank, Scotiabank, TSYS, U.S. Bank and VenueNext. According to a recent Accenture study, FinTech investments reached more than $12 billion globally in 2014.