IBS Journal June 2015


‘We want to make payments almost like breathing, so that you don’t even have to think about them,


unless there is a problem.’ Steve Perry, Visa Europe


move the ideas from the drawing board to the commercial world. Perry was previously Visa Europe’s chief


Visa trying to build everything itself, such as the digital wallet, to working with part- ners, as it has with its card-linked loyalty scheme that it has been rolling out with Citibank. Visa Europe has devised the concept


of a ‘100-day innovation funnel’ which is intended to bring ideas to a proof of con- cept stage, to be followed by further work for those that are deemed of interest to bring them to the point at which they can be rolled out to Visa member banks, retail- ers and consumers across Europe. Working alongside Visa Europe on Col-


lab are design agency, Seren, which already works with a number of other corporations on innovation hubs, London-based Cass Business School, and data specialist, Digital Catapult. Many of Visa’s own innovations of late


feel as though they are ‘sort of behind us’, says Perry, although they are still rolling out. As examples of the type of innova- tion that is somewhat taken for granted, he points to chip and PIN and the €500 million investment in a European processing capa- bility that can handle 2000 transactions per


second on Christmas Eve in the UK. Now there is the card-linked loyalty scheme, dig- ital wallets that are starting to be rolled out in Europe, and multi-currency mobile funds transfer. In terms of what is coming next, there


are already 14 initiatives underway in Visa Europe Collab (three of which have stemmed from Israel) and Perry envisag- es others starting every two to three days. Where an innovation is already well estab- lished, it might start later in the 100-day cycle, as is the case at present with an app that allows groups of people to divide and


mature to join at around the 70-day mark and move quickly into test phase. A lot of the innovations are likely to be


apps. ‘We want to make payments almost like breathing, so that you don’t even have to think about them, unless there is a prob- lem,’ says Perry. For consumers, payment mechanisms should be ‘utterly irrelevant’. Other innovations are likely to be in areas such as fraud detection. One project is with Charities Aid Foun-


dation (CAF) for making charitable dona- tions via contactless cards. A proof of con- cept is underway with Visa’s corporate charity, the Save the Children Fund. There is likely to be sharing of ideas


© IBS Intelligence 2015


and solutions across the hubs but Perry points out that the North American and -


es so not all might be applicable to each.


to be introduced in the US, for instance, it now has ApplePay, whereas Europe does not even have a date yet for the latter. Visa


and Australia, he adds, and there is a lot of innovation in this part of the world. With so many such initiatives pop-


ping up from large corporations, including banks, how can Visa ensure it attracts the right partners? Perry believes it has two


to entire markets, not limited to a single brand or bank. For instance, if a proof of concept is done with one restaurant, then every similar type of restaurant could be opened up via the Visa network for the roll- out. Similarly, a project that is focused on one country, can be extended to others via the network. The second aspect is the aforemen- tioned emphasis on nurturing not acquir- ing. Visa instead wants to work with any- one who can meet its standards and use its network to add value, building an eco- system along similar lines to those of the Apple Store.


www.ibsintelligence.com 45


case study: visa europe collab


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