AsPac economic growth fuels card expansion —Visa

Visa International has remained extremely optimistic about economic growth in the Asia Pacific region especially the People’s Republic of China and India.

Visa Asia Pacific president and chief executive officer Rupert Keeley said their estimates show that economies not impacted by the tsunami would continue to perform well, and others such as China and India will experience significant growth in the payment card market as merchant acceptance increases.

"We are doing this in several areas particularly through increasing issuance, acceptance and usage of debit; migrating magnetic strip cards to chip; ensuring instances of card fraud remain low and continuing to offer products that our cardholders find useful, are convenient for merchants and innovative and relevant to our member banks," Keeley added.

Visa maintains that all cardholder account and transaction information remained secure and that cardholders were aware of the threats of phishing and other types online fraud.

In Japan, Visa and the Ministry of Economy Trade and Industry (METI) convened the country’s inaugural anti-phishing task force.

It remains among the advocates in the rollout of chip cards and chip-enabled terminals, with more than 25 million cards in circulation based on the Europay-MasterCard-Visa (EMV) standard.

There are more than 460,000 EMV terminals deployed across the region and approximately 55 million cardholders enrolled in Visa’s online payment authentication service, Verified by Visa.

Meanwhile, it continued to meet market demand by developing specialized products that change the way people think about and make payments.

In 2004, Visa introduced four products including Visa Wave, Visa Platinum Debit, personalized cards, and Visa Light card.

Visa Wave is the first Visa contactless smart card that is fully compatible with global EMV smart card standards. It requires neither a signature nor handing the card to a cashier, yet allows consumers a fast and convenient way to make payment within seconds.

Visa Platinum Debit, a regional first, was created for high net-worth individuals and business travelers as a wealth management payment tool.

Personalized cards, meanwhile, can personalize cards with own photographic images, while Visa Light Card is a power-enhanced card that contains an embedded mini-flashlight. With a push of a button, the card emits light to become a miniature flashlight, illuminating the surrounding environment and enhancing the card’s graphic design.