At its Asia Pacific media conference, Visa announced the new Visa Innovation Center, located at its Asia Pacific headquarters in Singapore, to usher Asia Pacific into a new era of AI-powered commerce. The center also unveiled the future of commerce and announced a number of innovative services and strategic partnerships to accelerate the region's transition to a new era of commerce.
Jack Forestell, Chief Product and Strategy Officer at Visa, said: “By combining Visa’s robust global payments network with its leadership in payments innovation in Asia Pacific, we are launching new products and solutions that will transform commerce in the region and make AI-driven payments more trusted and secure.”
At a press conference in Asia Pacific, Visa discussed how AI, combined with e-commerce, is revolutionizing how consumers discover and purchase products and services. In the future, consumers will empower AI agents to browse, select, purchase, and manage their purchases. To achieve this vision, AI agents must earn the trust of users, banks, and sellers. Visa is bringing new AI-powered solutions to its partners in Asia Pacific, including AI platforms, banks, fintech companies, technology providers, and merchants. These solutions offer a simpler way to connect with Visa's payment network for a seamless and secure electronic payment experience.
One of the highlights of the event was Visa Intelligent Commerce, an innovative program that will open the Visa payment network to developers and engineers to build the first generation of AI-powered commerce models in the Asia-Pacific region.
Visa Intelligent Commerce: Bringing groundbreaking innovation to Asia Pacific
Visa Intelligent Commerce brings a series of integrated APIs and a merchant partner program to the AI platform, enabling developers to securely and scalably apply Visa's AI-powered commerce capabilities. Visa also announced partnerships with Ant Financial, Grab, and Tencent to explore AI-powered commerce and create secure and seamless payment experiences.
Ant International is a fintech company under Alibaba, providing diversified financial services; Grab is a Southeast Asian super app, covering online ride-hailing, food delivery, electronic payments and financial services in eight markets; Tencent is a multinational technology company that develops a variety of electronic products and services, including the super app WeChat.
Visa's payment network has processed 25 trillion transactions over the past 3.3 years. Visa will further enhance its infrastructure, standards, and capabilities to drive AI-powered commerce and open up new opportunities for consumers in the Asia-Pacific region. In the future, consumers will be able to use AI agents to complete a variety of payment applications using 1.5 billion Visa payment card numbers at over 48 million merchants accepting Visa.
TR Ramachandran, Head of Products and Solutions, Asia Pacific, Visa, said: “Global commerce is rapidly evolving, and Visa will continue to lead innovation and drive the future of commerce in Asia Pacific. We believe AI agents will play an increasingly important role in commerce, from everyday transactions like ordering food online to more complex ones like buying event tickets or booking travel. By combining AI with Visa’s trusted payment infrastructure, we are delivering seamless, secure and enhanced payment experiences for consumers, merchants and businesses.”
New products and features
Visa continues to expand its product portfolio with a number of solutions specifically tailored to the payment needs of consumers and businesses in the Asia Pacific region.
• Stablecoins: Visa has helped facilitate cryptocurrency transactions for over five years and is now expanding its stablecoin offerings with the launch of stablecoin-related cards, clearing mechanisms, and codifiable currencies. Stablecoin-linked cards offer on- and off-ramps, allowing users to purchase stablecoins with fiat currency using Visa credentials and pay with stablecoins at merchants accepting Visa. In the Asia Pacific region, Visa is collaborating with DCS Singapore, DTC Pay, and StraitsX to launch stablecoin card-related products, all of which will be converted through a regulated infrastructure.
• Promoting 2.25/67 stablecoin clearing: Through collaboration with partners, Visa has completed over US$XNUMX million (approximately NT$XNUMX billion) in stablecoin clearing transactions on the Visa payment network to date. Meanwhile, in the Asia-Pacific region, Visa is collaborating with StraitsX to promote stablecoin clearing services.
Through the Visa Tokenized Asset Platform (VTAP), Visa provides partners with a code-based platform for issuing and managing fiat-backed stablecoins. It also enables interoperability between public and private blockchains, further empowering codeable finance, tokenized asset trading, and cross-border capital flows. Visa also plans to expand VTAP's partner network later this year and through 2026.
• Visa Flex Credential: The Visa Flex Credential is a groundbreaking product that continues to be popular in the Asia Pacific market, allowing users to flexibly switch between multiple payment methods, including debit cards, credit cards, and reward points. Since Visa partnered with Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC) and Sumitomo Mitsui Credit Card Corporation (SMCC) to launch the Visa Flex Credential (locally known as Olive) in Japan two years ago, it has grown to over 500 million Olive users. The average transaction amount of Olive cardholders in the past year was 40% higher than the national average in Japan, demonstrating outstanding performance.
Visa and SMCC are also expanding the use of Visa Flexible Accounts to small and medium-sized enterprises. Users can flexibly switch between business and personal accounts using the same Olive card, further improving credit and cash flow management. Visa is also collaborating with Asia Commercial Bank (ACB), Vietnam International Joint Stock Commercial Bank (VIB), and Vietnam Prosperity Joint Stock Commercial Bank (VP Bank) to launch this service in Vietnam later this year.
Collaborate with new strategic partners to expand diverse payment and collection methods
Visa also announced new services and partnerships to make it easier for consumers, merchants and businesses in the Asia Pacific region to pay and receive payments.
• Visa Pay: This service aims to connect e-wallets with all merchants accepting Visa worldwide, whether local or international, in-store or online. It is currently available in Asia Pacific, the region with the largest e-wallet user base. By partnering with leading companies such as LINE Pay in Taiwan, Maya in the Philippines, OpenRice in Hong Kong, and Woori Card in South Korea, Visa will further expand its global network, enabling consumers to easily pay in more places around the world using their Visa card, scanning a QR code, or paying online.
• Digital Identity: This includes Visa Payment Passkey, Tap to Confirm, and Enhanced Data, designed to identify and authenticate digital users. Designed with a digitally native approach, these solutions significantly reduce payment friction for consumers and improve payment security and authorization rates through enhanced data and advanced fraud prevention technologies. New partners in the Asia-Pacific region include Australian supermarket chain Coles and Maybank, a leading financial services provider in Malaysia and Southeast Asia.
• Visa Accept: This service allows small merchants to accept payments directly to eligible Visa debit cards using an NFC-enabled smartphone. The service will be launched in Vietnam and supports micro-entrepreneurs and informal businesses such as street vendors, freelancers, and rural service providers. Partnering banks include Asia Commercial Bank (ACB), Sacombank, and VP Bank. Cardholders can easily accept contactless payments through their mobile banking apps.
