The card network holds a controlling interest in Visa Processing Service (VPS), which is headquartered in Singapore and begins operations this week serving existing clients.

The firm will specifically target business outside of Europe and the US, notably Asia Pacific, Latin America, Central Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Initially, it will focus on providing financial institutions, processors and other payment companies with pre-paid and debit processing. However it will also offer credit, ATM, money transfer and private label processing, as well as a range of payments services, including risk and fraud management, mobile applications, loyalty and cardholder support.

As part of the agreement Yalamanchili will provide its suite of Narada software products - a multi-currency, multi-language platform for debit, prepaid and credit payment transactions, gateway services for international and domestic networks, and acquiring applications, including ATM terminal driving.

The venture will be managed on a day to day basis by Visa veteran Russ Piparo. It will be governed by a board of directors, including Visa COO John Partridge, global head of strategy and corporate development, Rupert Keeley and regional president, Asia Pacific, David Lee. Yalamanchili founder and MD Y Ramakrishna and CTO P Srinivasan, are also on the board.

"Payments processing is critically important to Visa's long-term success as we seek to deliver increased value to our clients, accelerate our growth and diversify our sources of revenue," says Joseph Saunders, chairman and CEO of Visa. "Visa Processing Service will allow us to immediately and cost-effectively enter new geographies with a scalable and high-quality processing offering."