Visa Opens Up Network With Visa Developer Launch

Visa’s global network just got a whole lot more open for the developer community.

Visa announced today (Feb. 4) the launch of Visa Developer, which will enable software application developers to have open access to Visa’s payments technology, products and service. What this means is that, for the first time in Visa’s near 60 years of existence, it is now ensuring its retail payments network is an open platform to be a source that Visa believes will “drive innovation in payments in commerce.”

The goal of the new developer platform is to assist financial institutions, merchants, and technology companies with meeting the demands of consumers and merchants who are increasingly relying on devices to not only shop, but pay and get paid.

The rollout of the new platform will give the software developer community access to Visa’s payments technology, which includes services like: account holder identification, person-to-person payment capabilities, secure in-store and online payments services like Visa Checkout, currency conversion and consumer transaction alerts. More payment capabilities will be added during the year, according to Visa.

“As the leader in payments we have an opportunity to transform global commerce by opening up access to our global network and supporting our clients, industry partners and innovators in their pursuit of creating new, easier and more secure ways to pay,” said Charlie Scharf, Visa CEO. “Visa Developer represents not only a new access point to our network, but a new distribution platform for Visa products and services globally.”

Leading up to the official launch, select financial institutions, technology companies and startups have participated in beta trials of the Visa Developer platform, which has caused many of those to already create their own prototype applications using Visa’s technology. Trial partners include Capital One, CIBC, Emirates NBD, National Australia Bank (NAB), RBC, TD Bank, Scotiabank, TSYS, U.S. Bank and VenueNext.

The Visa Developer Platform has been a multi-year initiative under the umbrella of Visa’s global product and technology teams. That team has been leading the charge to transform Visa’s payment products and services into APIs for developers to use.

According to Visa, key attributes that differentiate Visa’s global developer program include:

• A globally accessible developer portal, offering an easy way to search Visa’s extensive suite of payment products and services.
• An open platform that provides access to hundreds of Visa APIs and software development kits for some of Visa’s most popular payment products and capabilities.
• A testing sandbox that offers application developers a plug and play experience, as well as access to Visa test data.
• Visa Developer engagement centers that are designed to foster collaboration and co-creation with application developers in key markets like San Francisco, Dubai, Singapore, Miami and São Paolo.

“We are unbundling Visa’s full suite of products and services and giving developers open access to the underlying payment capabilities,” said Rajat Taneja, Visa’s Executive VP of technology. “We believe this will lead to the creation of entirely new commerce experiences with Visa technology integrated to enable greater security, scale and convenience when it comes time to pay. When you add the ability to distribute those new experiences across Visa’s global network, you can see why Visa Developer will become the preferred playground for developers everywhere.”

And according to Visa, its vision for its global developer engagement program includes: “the creation of a marketplace that enables thousands of financial institutions, millions of merchants and technology companies to collaborate, share and search for innovative digital commerce applications and services.”

“TSYS has a long-standing business relationship with Visa, and we are thrilled to be one of the first payment solutions providers included in the Visa Developer program,” said Craig Ludwig, head of product for TSYS’ Merchant Services segment. “Their exciting new APIs allow us to deliver next-generation products and services that our issuing, acquiring and merchant clients can use to grow their businesses. By implementing Visa’s new technology, we will be at the forefront of payment product innovation.”

Dominic Venturo, CIO at U.S. Bank, commented: “Banks and collaborators in the FinTech industry that are committed to delivering customers faster, more efficient and secure financial services need to test, learn and deploy new ideas quickly in order to remain competitive. Collaboration is key, and the developer portals and tools offered by Visa enable U.S. Bank to bring new ideas to reality for our customers more quickly and with less development investment than traditional approaches.”