Visa has opened its doors to a new 4,000-square-foot innovation centre in Dubai, following the success of Visa's flagship innovation centre in San Francisco and with the recent opening of the Asia-Pacific innovation centre in Singapore. Located in the heart of Dubai's Media City, the new innovation centre will serve as a hub for Visa technologists, clients and partners to collaborate on the future of payment technology. The centre will bring together leading innovators from the Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa (CEMEA) regions to a cutting-edge, multi-use space conducive to creativity—the building features an open floor plan with casual meeting places, demo areas showcasing digital commerce and payment prototypes like the connected car and amenities like a fully stocked coffee bar.
Visa's global network of innovation centres aims to promote the future of "open commerce" and to provide innovators with the opportunity to engage, experience and collaborate to create new payment solutions. The network will work to accelerate prototyping and experimentation in payment technologies while maintaining a focus on the human element—the real benefits to people in their daily lives. As digital technologies advance, Visa remains committed to security and its central mission to ensure that every Internet-connected device can become a safe place for commerce. The company's dedicated team of veteran fintech experts will work with clients and partners to design new digital payment solutions using APIs and SDKs available through the Visa Developer Platform.
What brought Visa to Dubai? Visa first opened its office in Dubai in 1995. “Sitting at the virtual crossroads of tech and finance, Dubai is the ideal place to bring this collaborative approach to life for the diverse needs of this region," says John McGuire, Visa's vice president of innovation and strategic partnerships and head of the Dubai innovation centre. “At its core, Visa is a technology company and we are constantly evolving to provide immersive, collaborative and localised experiences for our clients and partners in CEMEA.”