At Mobile World Congress, Visa has announced a competition that will challenge five start-ups to make the next big breakthrough in payments.
Visa’s Everywhere Initiative was first launched in the U.S. in 2015, and nearly 1,000 start-ups have raised $1.7 billion collectively. The programmes have yielded 60 finalists and 14 winners.
With a prize of 50,000 euros to support a development programme with Visa, start-ups will go head to head attempting to bring something new to the industry that is rapidly shifting from plastic to digital.
The winner could also form business partnerships with Visa’s clients, as well as potentially having access to Visa APIs, executive mentors and technologists. This will be Visa’s first Everywhere Initiative in Europe, while Visa will continue to host the initiatives in North America, Latin America and Asia in 2017.
Eligible participants will be able to submit their solutions to one of three areas; Local Community Challenge, Regional Intercity Challenge or International Travel Challenge.
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These areas require innovation for digital payment technologies to connect people and enrich local communities, the transformation of intercity travel through mobile technologies, and products that will make international travel a more seamless experience.
Shiv Singh, Senior Vice President of innovation and strategic partnerships at Visa Inc said: “In a highly dynamic industry, Visa’s Everywhere Initiative allows us to explore a host of ideas that solve business challenges, influence our product roadmaps, support our customers, and shape our culture of innovation”.
In further comment from Shiv Singh: “Every time we expand this program into a new region, we aim to attract talented entrepreneurs with fantastic ideas to the payments space, and we hope to see similar great outcomes in the European market in the months ahead.”
