PYMNTS-MonitorEdge-May-2024

Visa to Open Technology and Product Hub in Poland

Visa

Visa plans to open a Technology and Product Hub in Poland.

The new hub will be the digital payments company’s fifth such location globally and its first in Central and Eastern Europe, Visa said in a Tuesday (May 23) press release.

“Poland’s highly skilled workforce and vibrant IT sector make it an ideal location for us to recruit and collaborate with partners and businesses to develop new payment solutions,” Visa President of Technology Rajat Taneja said in the release.

Visa’s new Technology and Product Hub in Poland will house as many as 1,500 new tech and product hires over the next few years, according to the release.

The company has been operating in Poland since 1995, and Poland was the first country in the world to achieve 100% contactless availability, the release said.

“As a global company that does business in more than 200 countries and territories, it is important to us to invest in local talent, creating regional tech hubs that allow us to serve our global customer base better than ever before,” CEO of Visa in Europe Charlotte Hogg said in the release. “We are committed to diversity and inclusion and ensuring that as Visa grows, it reflects the wide range of perspectives that make up the communities where we live and work.”

The new hub is the latest of several initiatives promoting innovation around the world that have been announced by Visa.

On May 16, Visa selected seven startups for its 2023 Visa Accelerator Program in Asia-Pacific.

The startups will collaborate with Visa experts over six months to test and iterate their solutions and validate them against commercial opportunities.

In March, the Visa Foundation announced that it would give $1 million from its Equitable Access Initiative to help women-owned small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) in Sub-Saharan Africa grow.

The grants will support AfriLabs, a community of technology hubs, innovators and entrepreneurs, and Graça Machel Trust, a women-founded and -led Pan-African nonprofit.

In January, Visa partnered with Fintech District, a community of more than 250 national and international stakeholders in the Italian FinTech ecosystem.

Together, the two organizations aim to help expand the FinTech ecosystem in Italy.

For all PYMNTS EMEA coverage, subscribe to the daily EMEA Newsletter.

PYMNTS-MonitorEdge-May-2024