Visa Europe promises EUR100m a year on mobile and e-commerce

08 April 2011 | 8634 views | 1 Mobile phone turning to cash

Visa Europe has vowed to pump EUR100 million a year into mobile and e-commerce in a bid to ensure it stays at the top of a rapidly changing payments tree.

The growth of e-commerce and mobile payments has seen a range of new players such as PayPal and wireless operators emerge to take on the traditional card giants.

Visa has moved aggressively to protect its turf and take advantage of new opportunities, buying two e-commerce outfits - CyberSource and PlaySpan - in the last year and forming numerous partnerships around the world to speed deployment of mobile payments, focussing on contactless.

Speaking at a conference in Barcelona, Visa Europe CEO Peter Ayliffe boasted that the company has invested EUR1 billion in its payments technology since its formation in 2004, building up a transaction processing infrastructure.

Ayliffe says the investment will continue, concentrating on mobile and online shopping: "In just ten years we have moved from EUR1 in every EUR18 spent in Europe on a Visa card to EUR1 in EUR8. Today we have committed to accelerate this displacement of cash by bringing to market ways to pay that bring true convergence between electronic payments and mobile and e-commerce technology."

Comments: (1)

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A Finextra member | 13 April, 2011, 09:11

This is great news for Europe and will certainly assist with increased consumer adoption of these non-traditional payment methods. With Visa Europe being a member association I am intrigued to know where the investment will come from - presumably the members themselves and, in what form this investment will be manifested - presumably the fees they pay?

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