Visa brings the future of digital commerce to Europe

2018 has been a milestone year for Visa in more than one way. 60 years ago Visa was founded based on a simple idea – giving people the freedom to make purchases, regardless of location, time zone or currency. Here in Europe, Visa made significant strides in 2018 to enable the next generation of digital commerce solutions. What lies at the heart of these investments is Visa’s commitment to keep digital commerce secure. Let me explain:

We started the year by completing a state-of-the art data processing facility, designed for Europe but part of a global network that connects 3 billion Visa cards and more than 46 million merchant locations in 200 countries and territories around the world. The new centre brings global scale, resilience and geo-diversity to our operations in Europe. Each year, more than 160 billion transactions and more than $10 trillion in volume1 are processed through this network – the largest of its kind in the world.

Over the summer, we completed the largest technology migration in our history. We moved our entire European client base to our global platform, VisaNet. With that, we are bringing real-time fraud analytics, new security solutions, and consumer controls to Europe – all designed to stop fraud, arm banks and merchants with real-time information, and protect consumers and merchants as they engage in digital commerce.

Today, Visa opens its European Cyber Fusion Centre – the latest in a series of first-class cybersecurity facilities globally that provide global 24x7x365 coverage. Everything about the European centre – from the floorplan and resources, to its dedicated staff – is designed to enhance the way Visa prevents, detects, and responds to cyber attacks on a global scale, and encourages collaboration with our partners in the industry around the world.

Consumers continue to be drawn to the speed and convenience of digital commerce. And as this trend continues, it is our job to ensure payments stay seamless, simple and secure. This means having the capacity to support the ever-increasing volume. It also means providing the highest standards of security to keep those payments safe, and providing the innovation that helps adapt the way we pay to the ever-evolving way we live.

The future of digital commerce is exciting, and it is made possible by investing in technology.

1 Visa data. Number of transactions and volume includes cash and payments for the 12 months ended June 30, 2018