Wirecard Becomes First Non Financial Institution to Issue Visa Prepaid Cards in Singapore

04/25/2016

Wirecard Singapore Pte Ltd, a Wirecard Group company, has been approved as a Principal Member of Visa and the first non-Financial Institution member in Singapore

 

Wirecard Singapore is the first non-Financial Institution to be granted a license to issue Visa prepaid cards in Singapore. This move is a continuation of Wirecard’s strategic partnership with Visa in Asia Pacific to enable easier access to prepaid card issuing for players across the ecosystem, following the acquisition of Visa Processing Services (VPS) in 2014.

Both Visa and Wirecard are committed to develop new payment solutions, especially in the FinTech area, while maintaining the highest standards of service availability, risk management, anti-money laundering and security. Wirecard will be using its Principal Membership to bring a suite of its own products to the market including virtual B2B payment cards, multi-currency travel and mobile payment solutions.

“We are excited to be providing Wirecard with a Visa prepaid issuing license and to support them in serving locally affiliated and small medium enterprises – a market where we see great potential. By leveraging the Visa Developer platform to open up our APIs and collaborating with Wirecard, we are making it even easier for innovators and FinTech companies to create new and more secure ways to pay,” said T.S. Anil, Head of Products, Visa Asia Pacific.

In addition to serving its own products, Wirecard will provide end-to-end services to programme managers, who want to manage prepaid programmes on their own, and other players in the market with white label and co-branded solutions. All of this is made possible through a unique combination of Wirecard’s technology capabilities, and extensive experience in managing prepaid programmes on a global scale.

Grigoriy Kuznetsov, EVP Global Financial Services at Wirecard Singapore: “We are really pleased to enter into this strategic partnership with Visa in Singapore and larger Asia Pacific region. We are a unique player in Singapore today, capable of issuing cards for mobile and contactless payments as well as providing BIN sponsorship and processing services for prepaid programmes. We are more than just a Visa member,  we are also as a technology provider to deliver a holistic solution to our potential clients. We have some promising projects on the cards and have already seen a great deal of interest in these.”

Earlier this year, Visa announced the launch of the Visa Developer Platform globally. For the first time in the company’s history, developers at merchants, financial institutions, technology companies and startups will have open access to Visa’s payment capabilities via the new Visa Developer platform.

 

About Visa

Visa Inc. (NYSE: V) is a global payments technology company that connects consumers, businesses, financial institutions, and governments in more than 200 countries and territories to fast, secure and reliable electronic payments. We operate one of the world's most advanced processing networks — VisaNet — that is capable of handling more than 65,000 transaction messages a second, with fraud protection for consumers and assured payment for merchants. Visa is not a bank and does not issue cards, extend credit, or set rates and fees for consumers. Visa's innovations; however, enable its financial institution customers to offer consumers more choices: pay now with debit, pay ahead of time with prepaid or pay later with credit products. For more information, visit www.visa.com.sg

About Wirecard

Wirecard AG is a global technology group that supports companies in accepting electronic payments from all sales channels. As a leading independent supplier, the Wirecard Group offers outsourcing and white label solutions for electronic payments. A global platform bundles international payment acceptances and methods with supplementary fraud prevention solutions. With regard to issuing own payment instruments in the form of cards or mobile payment solutions, the Wirecard Group provides companies with an end-to-end infrastructure, including the requisite licences for card and account products. Wirecard AG is listed on the Frankfurt Securities Exchange (TecDAX, ISIN DE0007472060, WDI). For further information about Wirecard, please visit www.wirecard.com or follow us on twitter @wirecard.