Visa Supports European FinTechs

At this year’s Money 20/20 event and after their European network was affected by a widespread outage, Visa announced a $100 investment and fast-track program to support EU-based start-ups. The idea is to help boost European FinTech solutions.

Visa's fast-track program for assisting start-ups will be implemented in partnership with the FinTech Contis, in charge of providing the necessary integration tools. Through this program, Visa commits to making it easier for start-ups to connect to their network: on-boarding with Visa would just require four weeks, instead of four months. And reduced fees will apply for promising start-ups.

Fast-track will initially launch in July in the UK, where a partnership is already in place with the London-based mobile bank Revolut. Other European markets should be addressed later on.

Besides this program, Visa will also invest in a certain number of FinTechs. The point will be to support the companies whose core business relies on Open-Banking developments, as well as payments-dedicated next-generation security technologies.

Comments – Leading card schemes set sights on FinTechs

Many changes are impacting the European payment landscape: disruptive technological innovations, shifting consumerism habits, new regulations... This considered, Visa must also react fast and make adjustments to craft innovative offers (Visa Direct for real-time payments, for instance).

Unlike their direct rival, whose interest in neo-banking players emerged early, Visa was barely positioned on this market. This program should help them catch up with Mastercard, as they recently announced they were launching Accelerate: a program for supporting FinTechs, too.

Visa already invested in several FinTechs, e.g.: SolarisBank, Payworks, the Swedish Unicorn Klarna, etc. They also announced a promising partnership with Revolut to attract more customers. The US card scheme intends to become FinTech companies’ partner of choice, worldwide.