Visa to Deliver Personal Payments and Compete with PayPal
Today (on March 16, 2011), Visa Inc., the global leader in payments, announced the launch of its Personal payment service that will allow users to send and receive funds to any Visa credit or debit card around the world. To provide this service, Visa has enhanced its VisaNet platform to allow financial institutions for accepting incoming funds.
For processing the payments, Visa has also announced strategic product agreements with CashEdge Inc. and Fiserv, Inc. As part of this deal, Visa will make use of their PopMoney and ZashPay platforms to send money to the Visa accounts. For processing his funds, all the person needs to do is enter the 16-digit Visa account number of the recipient and send the money.
While Visa personal payments are already available in more than 70 countries around the globe, the new system will not only allow them to provide their users in the US with the capability of sending payments directly, but also puts them in direct competition with PayPal, which provides similar money-management services in the US. The system will also provide options like online, personal and mobile payments, thus making this service extremely easy to use.
Visa has announced that the Visa Personal Payment feature will be made available by the second half of 2011. Whether or not it will upstage PayPal, only time will tell…