Part of a multi-year initiative to open up their payment network to third party developers, Visa has launched Visa Developer. The initiative opens up an array of Visa’s retail payment networks such as account holder identification, person-to-person payment capabilities, secure in-store and online payment services such as Visa Checkout, currency conversion and consumer transaction alerts.
For developers the benefit of the program is access to technology and data that they can use to help power their solutions. Specifically, Visa believes the initiative will help merchants, payment technology providers and financial institutions that are involved in the connected device space such as mobile Payments .
According to Visa, the launch of Visa Developer follows a beta trial period with participation from Capital One, CIBC, Emirates NBD, National Australia Bank (NAB), RBC, TD Bank, Scotiabank, TSYS, U.S. Bank and VenueNext. Distribution of technology is being made available through APIs that can be integrated by developers.
In addition to the available API’s and software development kits (SDK) for Visa’s most popular products, Visa has also created a testing Sandbox . The service allows developers to create applications and connect to Visa test data as they are in the development stage of their products. Also available to assist developers are ‘engagement centers’ being created by Visa Developer in markets such as San Francisco, Dubai, Singapore, Miami and São Paulo.
On the news, Rajat Taneja, EVP of Technology at Visa, stated: “We are unbundling Visa’s full suite of products and services and giving developers open access to the underlying payment capabilities. 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.”
