Nearly two years after Visa opened its first innovation center at One Market Center in San Francisco, the company has launched a network of innovation centers that will emerge around the world over the next two years. First stop: Singapore. Just this week the new 7,000-square-foot multipurpose space—think open floor plan, informal meeting spaces, and coffee bar at the ready—will serve as Visa’s premier collaboration hub for Visa technologists, clients, partners and the tech community in Asia Pacific to develop the next big idea in payments.
It’s no surprise that the industry has been shifting from plastic to digital and Visa’s mission has been to ensure that wherever you pay with Visa—in-store, online or on a connected device—security remains top priority. Singapore and the extended global network of innovation centers are an important part of that mission. Each will provide a physical space where clients and partners can engage in real-time experimentation and rapid prototyping with Visa technologists and business leaders. This includes access to Visa APIs and software developer kits (SDKs) available through Visa’s Visa Developer Platform. The Singapore innovation center, specifically, will operate as a gateway for Visa’s partners to deliver the next generation of payment solutions to the Asia market and beyond.
Why Asia for Visa’s first global opening? “The pace of technological innovation across Asia Pacific is unprecedented and creating enormous opportunity for any company that touches the growing payment ecosystem,” says Chris Clark, group executive, Asia Pacific, Visa. In fact, fintech investment in the Asia Pacific region, where Visa already has an office hub, has seen a significant increase in recent years, growing from an estimated US$880 million in 2014 to nearly US$3.5 billion in the first nine months of 2015.* “With the doors of Visa’s Singapore Innovation center now officially open,” adds Clark, “we look forward to working alongside clients and partners to imagine and build the creative and leading-edge mobile and digital experiences Asia Pacific is known to deliver to the rest of the world.”
* Source: Accenture, November 2015, “Fintech Investment in Asia”