The creation of a distinct Visa Commercial brand signals the first time that Visa has had a committed identity for the commercial space, extending its brand scope and encompassing Visa's broad platform of commercial offerings.

The announcement was made at the third Visa International Small Business Forum, which is taking place this week in Barcelona, Spain. The launch of the Visa Commercial brand follows the announcement made earlier this year about the adoption of an updated overarching Visa brand framework.

"As the world's leading payment brand, Visa has evolved its brand framework to better reflect the payment choices and opportunities our organization continues to provide to the commercial sector," said Aliza Knox, senior vice president, Visa Commercial, Visa International. "The new Visa Commercial brand creates an identity more closely aligned with business-to-business solutions, while still representing the vast scope and expertise of the core Visa business."

Visa Commercial is the global leader in commercial payments for card and enterprise system products and services. The core product platforms of Visa Commercial provide easy and convenient solutions for commercial enterprises and governments to drive business efficiency. The company is committed to extending its leadership in the important commercial payment sphere.

As part of the launch of the new brand, a new Visa Commercial brand mark has been developed for use in all corporate and regional identification and marketing communications, co-branded activities, and sponsorship materials in order to maximize brand presence and value. Card products will continue to utilize the core Visa Brand Mark to represent functionality at Visa's retail acceptance locations.

Visa Commercial's core product platform offerings include:

• Visa Business: Provides small businesses the power to manage expenses more effectively. With Visa Business, small businesses enjoy convenience, cost control, security, eased cash flow, and separation of business and personal expenses.
  
• Visa Corporate: Allows medium-sized to multinational businesses to track and report travel and entertainment expenses, monitor vendor charges, pre-set individual employee spending limits with budget forecasts, and provide greater cash flow control.
  
• Visa Purchasing: Helps clients reduce operational costs by simplifying the purchasing process for small and medium value commercial expenditures.
  
• Visa Commerce: A non-card, web-based solution that uses today's most secure global electronic payment network VisaNet. The application enables businesses to pay for larger-value invoices and exchange information about these invoices electronically, reducing cost and improving the efficiency of the payment process. Visa Commerce provides buyer-initiated payment and deferred settlement in amounts up to $10 million per transaction.

In addition to the platforms referenced above, Visa Commercial provides a number of innovative options for government agencies to improve fund disbursement efficiencies and maximize resources.

Small and medium enterprises represent a tremendous growth opportunity and the Visa International Small Business Forum delivers new ideas and tools to help Visa Member banks capitalize on this potential. During the forum, Visa Member banks will have the opportunity to discuss strategies, present case studies to help maximize program success, and explore key issues influencing our business and drive new product innovation.