The company unveiled the products and solutions at the center of these partnerships during the Global Fintech Fest 2024, Visa said in a Saturday (Aug. 31) news release.

“These advancements, developed in collaboration with a range of partners, are set to drive digital payment adoption across India by streamlining payment processes and enhancing transaction security and customer experience,” the release said.

Among the collaborations is one with Indian FinTech Paytm to create the Paytm NFC Card Soundbox, described as India’s first two-in-one device that combines mobile QR payments with a card machine for offline merchants. 

Meanwhile, Axis Bank, working with Visa and Mintoak, has rolled out Neo for merchants — a mobile app for payment acceptance, transaction reporting, and service requests. 

And PayU and Visa had introduced PayU Push Provisioning, a platform that “facilitates seamless sharing of card tokens between merchants and banks via a unique-single platform,” the release said.

Visa is also working with HSBC Bank on two projects: a point-of-sale (POS) device that integrates QR scanning and a soundbox, and the HSBC Premier Signature Debit Card, which offers benefits such as hotel perks, higher spending limits, special dining offers, and global airport assistance.

India’s digital transformation is a topic that has been covered at length in this space, with PYMNTS writing that the country “traditionally reliant on cash, embarked on a digital payments journey 15 years ago.”

“The process was marked by key milestones like the introduction of the instant Unified Payments Interface (UPI) in 2016,” that report continued. “The 2016 de-monetization further accelerated the transition to digital payments, leveraging the existing trend of Indian citizens using mobile phones for various transactions.”

Research by PYMNTS Intelligence has found that digital wallets have become the preferred payment method for more than half of all retail purchases in India, with 8 out of 10 of digital wallet users opting to use UPI. Bank transfers are the second-most used underlying payment method, making up 12% of digital wallet payments. 

“This preference for digital wallets and UPI reflects the convenience and ease of use they offer to Indian consumers,” PYMNTS wrote.

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The payments giant’s Money Movement Advisory Practice — announced Tuesday (Aug. 27) for customers in the U.S. and Canada — is a value-added service from Visa Consulting & Analytics (VCA), the payments consulting advisory arm of Visa.

“Visa’s Money Movement Advisory Practice is a strategic response to the increasing demand for frictionless payments and mobile experiences,” the company said in a news release. “‘Money Movement,’ which encompasses multiple ways to facilitate the transfer of funds across various platforms and channels, has emerged as a frequent area of client inquiries.”

According to the release, Visa’s Money Movement solutions, including the Visa Direct network, bolster real-time, secure transactions for low- and high-value payments, helping clients reach up to 8.5 billion endpoints across more than 190 countries and territories, in 160 currencies, leading to a more innovative financial ecosystem.

“Clients are actively seeking effective strategies to meet the increasing customer demand for quick, reliable payments,” said Kate Manfred, Visa’s North America head of advisory services. “Visa can be their strategic partner, offering innovative solutions for money movement that will drive new sources of growth and customer retention.”

The new practice leverages VCA’s network of more than 1,300 consultants, data scientists, technology developers and product designers across 75 offices around the world to help clients with their top Money Movement priorities, such as strategy definition and user experience optimization, Visa said.

Visa teamed last month with banking software company Temenos to provide the Visa Direct money movement solution to banks.

“By combining Visa Direct’s capabilities with our flexible Payments Hub and integrated account services, we are empowering banks to turn on a new distribution option with ease and provide their customers with seamless and secure international payment experiences,” Mick Fennell, business line director — payments at Temenos, said in a news release.

Visa’s efforts, via Visa Direct, have made inroads into driving the connectivity required to fuel instant payments, Ruben Salazar, then-senior vice president and global head of Visa Direct, told PYMNTS’ Karen Webster in an interview late last year.

The payment network and its partners have developed aliases and directories that allow instant access to sender and receiver bank accounts by connecting to emails or mobile devices — even nicknames.

“The alias is connected to multiple payment capabilities or credentials and … connect one network to another network to facilitate [faster] transactions,” Salazar said.

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As Visa’s Sara Craven highlights, achieving this level of efficiency requires intricate mechanisms that support every transaction from authentication to settlement, illustrating the sophistication involved in making eCommerce appear so effortless.

Small businesses must excel in customer experience by offering diverse payment options and using data effectively, while also guarding against sophisticated fraud. Visa’s James Mirfin highlights these businesses, often overlooked in fraud prevention, are prime targets due to limited resources, necessitating strong fraud detection and security measures.

Each of the three points below comes from a different episode of the PYMNTS Visa SMBTV Series, all hosted by PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster.

The Complexity Behind Seamless eCommerce Transactions

The seemingly effortless nature of eCommerce transactions often feels like magic to consumers. Imagine a lunch with friends where a notification alerts someone that a desired item is available. A few clicks later, the item is in their cart, paid for, and en route, all without a hitch.

During her appearance in the episode, “Visa: Behind-the-Scenes Collaboration Needed to Create eCommerce ‘Magic’ for Small Businesses,” Craven, general manager of Visa’s Authorize.net and Verifi, noted that while this experience feels “very natural,” the process involves intricate behind-the-scenes operations.

Beneath the surface, every transaction involves a complex network of systems. From authentication to settlement, each step is critical for ensuring a secure and efficient transaction. Craven’s insights reveal that the smooth user experience is the result of advanced technology working seamlessly in the background. The sophistication of this technology underscores the effort required to make eCommerce appear straightforward.

Leveraging Data and Payment Options for Small Business Success

For small businesses, offering a top-notch customer experience is key to converting casual shoppers into loyal buyers. Alex Burgin, vice president at Authorize.net, stressed the importance of using data and providing multiple payment options to achieve this. Customers expect convenience and flexibility, which includes a range of payment methods from credit cards to digital wallets.

In the episode, “Simplicity Defines the Small Business Online Payments Playbook,” Burgin said, “wherever people shop, they crave convenience. They may want to pay online, in-person or over the phone. They have preferences for what payment types they want to use. Offering multiple payment options is one of the best ways to ensure a positive client experience.”

Integrating a seamless payment experience involves more than just providing multiple payment options. It includes leveraging data to personalize interactions and anticipate customer needs. By analyzing transaction data and customer behavior, small businesses can customize their services and marketing, improving the overall customer experience. This approach increases the chances of repeat business and long-term loyalty, helping small businesses stand out in the competitive eCommerce market.

Small Businesses: The Overlooked Targets of Fraud

Small businesses are increasingly targeted by fraudsters, despite often being overlooked compared to large enterprises.

In “Small Businesses Confront Card Fraud Vulnerabilities,” Mirfin, Visa’s senior vice president and global head of Risk and Identity Solutions, said small businesses are particularly vulnerable due to their limited resources and focus on core activities rather than fraud prevention. This vulnerability creates significant opportunities for fraudsters to exploit online storefronts and customer interaction points.

Fraudsters employ stolen card credentials, synthetic identities and advanced technologies to infiltrate these systems. Mirfin said tools like Authorize.net use risk-based approaches to detect and block fraudulent activities, such as mismatched billing addresses and repeated failed transactions. However, the evolving tactics of fraudsters, including sophisticated phishing schemes, pose ongoing risks. Small businesses must adopt comprehensive fraud prevention strategies and leverage advanced tools to protect against these threats and maintain a secure online environment.

“We monitor those kind of repeat attempts, and we are able to essentially block transactions or identify essentially source IP addresses that multiple failed transactions are coming from,” Mirfin noted. “And we put various thresholds or limits around that depending on what the scenario entails.”

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During the conference call with analysts, CEO Ryan McInerney said that “our products and solutions in B2B remain very important in winning and growing our business.”

New payment flows — which include B2B offerings — were up 18% year over year, as management said earlier this year during another earnings call, the total market for those flows represents a $200 trillion opportunity.

In B2B, the company has “focused on penetrating new verticals,” and offered up the example where the payment network is working with AXA and Paysure to launch a commercial virtual card solution to simplify the claims process. Visa, he said, has also expanded virtual card acceptance through business services provider Cintas, which offers uniform, safety and fire protection services to over 1 million customers.  

PYMNTS Intelligence data indicates firms not using virtual cards also happen to experience an average revenue loss of 4.6% from payment uncertainties.

Outside the states, he said, and in illustration of data in the service of modernizing B2B money movement, McInerney detailed that in working with Celero, a business financial management solution, Visa is leveraging data to give issuers with enhanced visibility into small business spend by aggregating data across cards and bank accounts.

Commercial Volumes Up

Within Visa Direct, overall transactions grew 41% for the quarter to 2.6 billion transactions  and commercial volumes up 7% year over year in constant dollars, management said during he call.

The company’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission note that nominal commercial payments volume in the U.S. was up 6% to $253 billion, and international commercial payments volumes surged by 9% year over year to $149 billion.

Value-added services revenue — where Visa works with other businesses, including financial institutions, enablers and networks to enable instant payments across a variety of use cases — grew 23% in constant dollars to $2.2 billion, primarily driven by issuing and acceptance solutions and advisory services. McInerney noted the growth in this segment, as quarterly revenues are starting to approach what, previously, were annual tallies. In “2021, we did about $5 billion in revenue; 2022, $6 billion. Last year was $7 billion,” McInerney said. 

Separately from the earnings announcement and details, and as spotlighted here, Alan Koenigsberg, senior vice president and global head of large, middle market, industry verticals and working capital solutions at Visa, told Karen Webster that consumer-like experiences online will help bring analog B2B interactions fully into the digital realm.

One of the key innovations Visa has focused on, according to Koenigsberg, is the “reassembly” of financial products through partnerships, such as with SAP’s Taulia. The partnership brings together Visa’s digital payments technology and Taulia virtual cards, a solution that integrates with SAP’s enterprise resource planning offerings and business applications.

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CEO Ryan McInerney said on the conference call with analysts Tuesday (July 23) that tap to pay grew 4 percentage points from last year to 80% of face-to-face transactions globally, excluding the U.S. More than 55 countries are more than 90% contactless penetration, he said, in response to analysts’ questions.

In the U.S., tap to pay has been tied to more than 50% of in-person commerce transactions, and 30 cities have seen more than 60% penetration. 

The focus on a simpler, secure checkout experience is gaining momentum. The company’s integration of click to pay and the Visa payment passkey service enable customers to authenticate themselves using biometrics.

“Already, we have hundreds of issuers enabled for passkeys in Europe and a number of issuers who represent more than 50% of our commerce payments volume in Europe piloting the solution,” he said.

10 Billion Token Mark

The company passed the 10 billion token mark this quarter, according to the CEO’s commentary — where the tokens helped generate an estimated $40 billion in incremental eCommerce revenue and prevented an estimated $600 million in fraud.

Revenues from new payment flows, he said, grew by 18% year over year. Visa Direct transactions grew by 41% over the same time.

“Visa Direct cross-border P2P [person-to-person] transactions have nearly doubled,” said McInerney, as the company saw 2.6 billion transactions overall this past quarter.

Value-added services revenues were up 23% in the fiscal third quarter.

CFO Chris Suh said on the call that, as global payments volumes were 7% higher, card-present volume grew 2% and card-not-present volume grew 7%.

High-Spend Segment

In detailing consumer spending, Suh said that in the U.S., “while growth in the high-spend consumer segment remains stable compared to prior quarters, we saw a slight moderation in constant dollars, and relatively stable with [fiscal] Q2 when adjusted for leap year.” 

In the U.S., payments volumes were 4% higher, with debit up 4% and credit up 3% year over year. Deceleration from higher growth rates in prior quarters, Suh said, does not “appear to be from any one factor, but likely a number of smaller factors such as weather, timing of promotional shopping events, and the technology outage among others.” There has been moderation seen in lower spending cohorts, management said on the call.

Cross-border spending growth was 14%, he said, and cross-border travel volume growth was also up in the mid-teens percentage point growth level.

Suh added on the call that value-added services growth clocked in at 23% and at $2.2 billion, and now is about 25% of total revenues. Issuing solutions and acceptance and advisory segments have been seeing momentum, along with Visa Secure and dispute tools including Visa Resolve online.

Asked on the call about ongoing litigation and the possible reduction in interchange rates, McInerney said that the rejection of the $30 billion proposed settlement is one where “we strongly disagree with the judge’s decision. … We believe the settlement provided meaningful relief to all merchants. The second thing I would say is the decision failed to take into consideration a number of things, especially the complex multisided ecosystem that we operate in, and the complicated role that many different players in the ecosystem deliver. Having said that, we’re pursuing a revised settlement. It’s too early to speculate on what that settlement is.”

In the meantime, McInerney said, with regard to consumer payments, “We see more than $20 trillion in cash, checks, ACH, electronic transactions … and we’re capturing that opportunity through a few different ways. One is continuing to expand acceptance and expand the places where people can use cards,” he said, naming rent and eCommerce as key verticals, as Visa’s new products and services “win in the marketplace and help us capture and digitize a big chunk of that opportunity on the Visa network.”

Visa shares were 3% lower in after-market trading on Tuesday.

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That’s the view of Alan Koenigsberg, senior vice president and global head of large, middle market, industry verticals and working capital solutions at Visa, who told Karen Webster that consumer-like experiences online will help bring analog B2B interactions fully into the digital realm.

Koenigsberg — interviewed for PYMNTS’ “What’s Next in Payments” series — emphasized that while embedded finance has been a staple in consumer eCommerce for years, its application in the B2B space is gaining momentum. However, there will not necessarily be a hockey stick adoption curve.

“We’re likely to see larger firms take up the embedded finance mantle, and smaller enterprises will follow suit,” he said.

In the meantime, he said he believes the adoption of certain back-office technologies such as treasury workstations and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems will present treasurers with data to help them see additional working capital benefits by “doing something different — and then you’ve added value. That’s a big part of what Visa does.”

The Importance of Scale

Koenigsberg highlighted the role of scale in driving the adoption of embedded finance across the financial supply chain. He emphasized that while technology is essential, the real challenge lies in achieving scalable solutions that can meet the diverse needs of various stakeholders.

“The field is littered with non-scale solutions built in a way that was not for that customer,” he said.

He explained that scalable embedded finance solutions must adapt to the specific needs of businesses, particularly in the B2B sector. This approach ensures that financial products can seamlessly integrate into existing workflows, thereby reducing friction and enhancing user experience.

One of the key innovations Visa has focused on is the reassembly of financial products through partnerships, such as with SAP’s Taulia. The partnership brings together Visa’s digital payments technology and Taulia virtual cards, a solution that integrates with SAP’s ERP offerings and business applications.

The importance of scale is also evident in the broader context of working capital management. Koenigsberg pointed out that effective working capital solutions can enhance the financial efficiency of businesses, especially in a fluctuating economic environment marked by rising interest rates and changing market dynamics.

The Working Capital Framework

Central to the discussion of innovations in embedded finance is the concept of working capital management. The recent period of rising interest rates has brought renewed focus to accounts receivable processes, after a decade of developments primarily centered on accounts payable and buyer-led solutions.

“It does feel like a little bit of the ‘Back to the Future’ kind of comment,” Koenigsberg said, noting the shift in focus. However, he stressed that the goal remains to make transactions easier for both buyers and sellers, regardless of their size or relative market power.

Visa’s role in this evolving landscape is as a connector of commerce, according to Koenigsberg. He said the company aims to facilitate connections between financial institutions and between different elements of the financial value chain on a global scale. This position allows Visa to adapt solutions from one market to another, sharing information and making innovations more widely applicable.

Koenigsberg highlighted the importance of industry specialization in developing effective embedded finance solutions.

“The winners here will be industry specialists,” he predicted, pointing to sectors like aerospace and fleet as areas where deep industry knowledge will be crucial for building trust and creating tailored solutions.

The transformation of various verticals has been pushed toward a “tipping point” as younger generations, particularly Generation Z consumers, become more prevalent in the workforce, Koenigsberg said. He suggested that younger professionals entering the business world are questioning why their work experiences don’t match the digital experiences they’re accustomed to in their personal lives.

Technology Challenges

The push for embedded finance in B2B is not without challenges. Koenigsberg acknowledged that while the technology piece can be daunting at first, it’s often the easiest part of the equation. The bigger challenge is changing established processes and overcoming organizational inertia.

To address these challenges, Koenigsberg stressed the importance of making solutions “out-of-the-box ready” for corporate customers.

Looking ahead, Koenigsberg said he sees 2024 as a pivotal year for embedded finance in B2B commerce. With many of the technological pieces now in place and a growing demand for more efficient processes, the time has come for action.

“As we go through the midpoint of this year, it’s time for execution,” he said. “It’s time to go live.”

He emphasized the need for companies to spend more time listening to customers as they build and adapt their solutions, ensuring they’re easy to implement and truly meet business needs.

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Visa Executive Vice President, Global Head of Value Added Services Antony Cahill told PYMNTS’ Karen Webster that the growth comes as issuers look to reimagine their transaction and account experiences as payments economics and customer expectations are changing across the world.

Helping Issuers and Merchants Break New Ground

Breaking down the business, Cahill noted that a third of the company’s VAS activity — across more than 250 products and services — is tied to helping client firms (including merchants) address the “pain points” of payments. “And two-thirds,” he added, “comes from helping our issuers move into great new areas of opportunity — to reframe their business and open up new revenue pools.”

And that’s aimed squarely at growing their Gen Z ranks.

Though banks typically generate the majority of their income from older and more financially established consumers, refocusing their product mix for younger cohorts a high priority. Particularly since they have more digital-first and digital only payments and banking options to choose from.

“Generation Z was born digitally native,” Cahill told Webster. “They’ve never known an experience without their handheld mobile devices — and their lives revolves around those devices.”

Today, the very definition of a customer experience revolves around that mobile form factor, and with that comes a different set of expectations of what a banking experience looks like. From Visa’s perspective that includes a more streamlined and secure way to move between different payments modalities — debit, credit, prepaid, installments — without having to jump between different schemes.

How to Make Banking Digital-First  

Making digital-first banking more than a talking point, Cahill said, means that banks must design — or retool — their products with that as a starting point. For instance, a mortgage application might start online, but end up being signed in a branch setting. That isn’t a consistent experience today and is very use-case specific, but very much reflects how consumers think about the how the physical experience just becomes another touch point on their digital journey.

Easier said than done, Cahill said, particularly since the vintage of most bank tech stacks is at least 40 years old.

“Banks are looking at their future technology needs, and they are looking for cloud-based infrastructure — and for composable solutions,” he told Webster.

A cornerstone of helping banks deliver that strategy is what Cahill describes as the strategic extension of Visa’s debit processing capabilities globally, the thesis behind the acquisition a year ago of cloud-banking platform Pismo. The acquisition gives Visa debit issuing and processing capabilities on a global scale and with it a set of capabilities that helps issuers move new products into markets more quickly.

Cahill points to the recent launch of the Flex Card — an all-in-one digital credential — as a recent proof point for how Visa DPS is helping banks do that. Visa DPS is the largest issuer processor in North America, something Cahill said is probably a well-kept Visa secret.

The Long-Term Value of Value-Added Services

Cahill was brought in a year and a half ago to organize the portfolio of value-added services that had been developed or acquired over the years into a stand-alone business unit. Before joining Visa, he had been a VAS client as a top exec at two of Australia’s biggest issuers.

“[Visa’s] been structurally moving to ensure that our capabilities are available in as many markets, and that we operate as globally as possible,” said Cahill.

The 250 VAS offerings include everything from Verifi, which helps merchants prevent and resolve disputes and chargebacks, to open banking, through the company’s acquisition of Tink. Elsewhere, risk and authentication innovations help client firms regardless of payment rails and payment types.

“A VAS score can be used not just to score a Visa transaction — but a transaction that’s coming in from another rail or scheme,” he said, including real-time payments that use the RTP rails operated by The Clearing House.

Having both built and bought those technologies that Visa is in turn delivering to clients, Cahill noted that issuers are growing their competitive edge. It speaks to Visa’s take on the “buy, build or partner” debate that has become so important as FinTechs look to up level their game. According to Cahill, Visa carefully balances between developing solutions in-house, acquiring cutting-edge technologies and forming strategic partnerships. This approach has seen Visa make several key acquisitions over the years, including the purchases of Verifi, CyberSource and European open banking platform Tink, along with Pismo in June of 2022, enhancing the firm’s capabilities and expanding its market reach rapidly.

“We are very intentional about our approach,” Cahill said. “Building capabilities in-house is often our preference due to our robust engineering resources. However, acquiring external technologies or forming strategic partnerships are equally pivotal when they offer us a significant competitive edge or faster market entry.”

Like most companies in the financial services industry, Visa navigates a complex ecosystem where cooperation and competition often intersect. As Cahill noted, Visa frequently works closely with partners in some areas while competing with them in others.

This “coopetition” dynamic is exemplified by Visa’s acquisition of Pismo, which provides issuer processing and core banking capabilities that may compete with some of its existing FinTech partners. However, Cahill believes this approach benefits the broader payments ecosystem, emphasizing his belief that the industry is mature enough to understand these multifaceted relationships. The company positions its expanded capabilities, like the Visa Acceptance Platform, as tools that even competitors can leverage.

Cross-Pollination, Vitamins and Personal Trainers

The diverse needs of Visa’s client base are met through the breadth and depth of the company’s offerings, said Cahill. Many issuers are also acquirers, he said, and so may opt to use facets of Visa’s Acceptance suite. And some operations — such as open banking platform Tink — are bringing new capabilities to new markets, such as the U.S. as it helps issuers create more efficient account to account on and off ramps.

There’s a metaphor to be gleaned, said Cahill, where the 250 VAS feature now part of Visa’s portfolio might be likened to a complete set of multivitamins. Or personal trainers. Tink and Pismo, he said, help Visa’s partners maintain “maximum fitness and improve their service levels and customer experience.”

The industry has “never moved faster,” he said. “It’s never been more competitive, and consumer expectations have never been higher.”

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In his new role, Pichon will lead a global team of nearly 4,000 members focused on delivering best-in-class client experiences, Visa said in a Monday (July 1) email to PYMNTS.

Pichon will report to Chief Risk and Client Services Officer Paul Fabara, according to the email.

Fabara said in a statement emailed to PYMNTS: “Visa is committed to delivering for our customers and providing best-in-class client services across our portfolio. This dedication to our clients is what drives our success. I’m pleased to welcome Aurélien to lead Client Services globally; his experience has helped accelerate client growth and partnership across CEMEA, and his leadership will help us to continue to provide unmatched operational support across the globe.”

This move comes at a time when Visa said that overall payments volume in the second fiscal quarter was up 8% year over year. During the quarter ended March 31, U.S. payments volume was higher by 6%, international volume grew 11% and cross-border volume increased 16%, the company said when reported its quarterly earnings.

In recent news from the company, Visa Canada said June 27 that it has formed a partnership with Amazon in which cardholders shopping on Amazon.ca or the Amazon app will have the option to select “installments by Visa” as their payment method. Amazon joins about 100 other merchants in Canada offering installments enabled by Visa.

On June 26, Visa launched a service that delivers a digital card replacement via text or email to cardholders anywhere in the world. This value-added service, dubbed Digital Emergency Card Replacement, is designed to offer a convenient, fast and secure solution for cardholders who lose their card while traveling.

On June 13, Visa relaunched its SavingsEdge program for small businesses, introducing a refreshed program website with greater features and functionality, as well as hundreds of added merchant offers via Instant Coupons and Cashback Offers in more categories. In addition, small businesses can get notifications in real-time when participating cardholders earn cashback on qualifying transactions, as well as a cashback tracker to see how much they saved.

In another recent product introduction, Visa said in May that it launched an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered real-time fraud detection service in the United Kingdom. The company made this “Visa Protect for A2A Payments” service available to all banks in the U.K. after a pilot program in which it found an additional 54% of fraud beyond that identified by banks’ fraud prevention systems.

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When it was first announced, Mark Nelsen, senior vice president and global head of consumer payments at Visa, told PYMNTS’ CEO Karen Webster that one of the use cases for the ability to use one card for several different payment options would be buy now, pay later (BNPL).

Although it’s not the first example of the technology hitting the ground, Visa Canada on Thursday (June 27) announced a major new partnership that will make use of that flexibility by integrating installment plans at the point of sale.

The collaboration is with Amazon, and when shopping on Amazon.ca or the Amazon app, cardholders will have the option to select “installments by Visa” as their payment method. Amazon joins about 100 other merchants in Canada offering installments enabled by Visa. The issuing banks on Amazon — for now anyway — will be limited to RBC and Scotiabank.

Dan Iwachiw, head of product for Visa Canada, told PYMNTS that the new payment options fit into a broader strategy of offering payment choice to Canadian consumers.

“There’s no better partner to drive for us the adoption and scalability of Visa’s installment solution than working with someone like Amazon,” Iwachiw said. “We’re thrilled to build on our partnership with them and have Canada to be a first stop of this new journey. It’s a natural extension of our overall relationship and one that we’re looking to further build on and grow.”

Iwachiw noted that more issuers and merchants will be partnering with Visa Installments in Canada and those announcements will be forthcoming. The announcement follows Visa’s pattern set back in May of keeping issuers at the center of new payment options. And like Synchrony’s announcement expanding installment options with Atlanticus Holdings’ Fortiva brand for “second look” customers, Visa’s move addresses three elements in its core ecosystem: Issuers, consumers and merchants.

“We don’t think this is just good news for consumers,” Iwachiw said. “This provides consumers more choice and flexibility, but this is good news for issuers as well. It’s good news for processors, it’s good news for merchants. It’s all about providing a secure payment mechanism of transacting, just like any other traditional card purchase. But we’re just providing more choices for everyone in the ecosystem as a way to fulfill the desires of the consumer.”

Just as they are across the globe, installment plans are gaining momentum in Canada. Visa research shows 58% of Canadian consumers are interested in using installments, and it projects that by 2026, it will account for nearly 25% of all global eCommerce transactions.

That’s the top-level take. Drilling down deeper, a recent report from PYMNTS Intelligence showed that consumers are using BNPL/installments primarily for two reasons: managing cash flow and accessing credit. For the group of consumers the report calls “necessity users,” who often have lower incomes and limited access to traditional credit, BNPL offers a way to make essential purchases like clothing and groceries on a limited budget. “Choice users” have higher incomes and use BNPL as a strategic tool to optimize cash flow and manage payment for larger purchases. Additionally, choice users tend to spend more on average using BNPL ($777) than necessity users ($576).

Iwachiw said Visa’s take on the market is similar, and that the use cases for the method are growing, and the typical BNPL user is expanding from the lower-income, younger consumers that are most associated with its use.

Visa’s solution, Iwachiw noted, is incorporated into consumers’ existing credit cards, provided by their financial institutions, using the current credit limit without requiring additional credit checks. At the point of sale, it is presented as an additional payment option, offering consumers greater flexibility. For merchants, the solution maintains the standard transaction process, ensuring no disruption at the point of sale. This approach retains the security and trust associated with Visa’s established transaction methods.

“Providing consumers more choice is definitely the way we want to go,” he said. “We’ve recently made a lot of announcements at our user conference in terms of other ways that we’re looking to provide consumers more choice and more flexibility. So, this is just the start.”

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When cardholders receive their new card, which Visa sends on behalf of card issuers, they can authenticate it and add it to their digital wallet, Visa said in a Wednesday (June 26) press release emailed to PYMNTS.

This value-added service, dubbed Digital Emergency Card Replacement, is designed to offer a convenient, fast and secure solution for cardholders who lose their card while traveling, according to the release.

“We’ve all felt that moment of panic while on vacation — the loss of a card and the feeling of being stranded,” Kathleen Pierce-Gilmore, global head of issuing solutions at Visa, said in the release. “Our new digital emergency card solution addresses these very issues.”

This new offering provides an additional layer of support to Visa’s Global Customer Assistance Services (GCAS), which provides a robust distribution network, established partnerships, and rapid card production and delivery across five continents, per the release. This service manages more than 3 million multilingual interactions each year.

Together with providing a solution for cardholders, the new Digital Emergency Card Replacement service enables issuers to deliver enhanced customer service, according to the release.

“It’s a win-win, demonstrating the power of digital payments to improve experiences for everyone,” Pierce-Gilmore said in the release.

Digital wallets have become a key part of travel for 74% of Americans, according to the Visa Global Travel Intention Study released in November 2023. That’s especially true among affluent travelers and millennials, the study found.

Cash, on the other hand, is a source of stress. The study found that travelers prefer using it but also worry about it being stolen and about paying for currency conversion. Plus, they often find that they have unused local currency left over and feel obligated to make a purchase to use it up.

“Americans expect a seamless, digitally connected travel journey whether they are here in the U.S. or abroad,” Kirk Stuart, Visa’s head of North American Merchant, Acquiring & Enablement, said in a press release announcing the study’s findings.

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