Visa and ICICI Bank announce partnership to support fintechs

11/23/2020

 

Visa (NYSE: V), the global leader in digital payments technology, today announced a platform collaboration with ICICI Bank, a large private sector bank in India, on its ‘Visa in a Box’ programme for fintech acceleration. Through this collaboration, fintechs can access APIs and the developer sandbox of Visa and ICICI Bank, to rapidly build, test and deploy consumer payment applications.

ICICI Bank is the first bank to partner with Visa for its ‘Visa in a Box’ programme in India. As part of the alliance, ICICI Bank and Visa have come together to help fintechs launch their prepaid card issuing programme in India. The Bank offers its financial technology, in-depth market expertise and payment solutions to accelerate innovation within the thriving fintech community. 

Under the partnership, ICICI Bank has launched co-branded prepaid cards with three fintechs—one each in business banking, business expense management and neo bank.

The partnership between Visa and ICICI Bank will further accelerate fintech enablement for innovations across digital issuance, lending and prepaid use cases. This partnership is another key milestone in Visa’s focus on driving digital payments in India by empowering the country’s emerging fintechs with its vast network, platform assets and global expertise.

The ‘Visa in a Box’ offering is designed to foster a collaborative ecosystem for Indian fintechs by enabling distribution of digital credentials and value-added services. The program provides customers streamlined access to a suite of modular capabilities and solutions built by Visa and its partners. A few examples of services include digital KYC, loyalty solutions, payment gateway facilities and innovations in card design. ‘Visa in a Box’ is architected to provide a “developer-friendly” path to fintechs who can rapidly prototype, build, test and launch new card offerings in India.

Expressing his thoughts on the partnership, TR Ramachandran, Group Country Manager, India and South Asia, Visa said, “As India becomes one of the epicenters for payment innovation, it is incumbent upon established players to create a collaborative ecosystem for fintechs to help contribute to India’s journey of digital payment adoption. We are delighted to partner with our longstanding partner, ICICI Bank, towards this objective. The bank shares our vision of catalyzing fintechs who are solving for the payment challenges of tomorrow - across digital issuance, credit access, small merchant acceptance and commercial payments. Through this partnership with ICICI, we look forward to combining our platform assets and expertise, to deliver a robust kickstart for Indian fintechs.”

Sudipta Roy, Head- Unsecured Assets, ICICI Bank said, “ICICI Bank has always been at the forefront of digital innovations since its inception. We are happy to partner with Visa for their ‘Visa in a Box’ programme. We believe that this partnership presents us with an opportunity to get innovative solutions for our customers and partners, thereby catering to the growing demand for digital solutions in the country. We look forward to witnessing some pioneering and ground-breaking innovations and solutions through this programme, which have the potential to benefit a larger audience.”

Visa and ICICI Bank will also jointly develop programmes aimed at accelerating growth and innovation in their respective businesses. ICICI Bank will also have access to Visa's growing network of fintech partners – part of the Visa Everywhere Initiative (VEI) – and provide guidance to get them to market in the most efficient way possible.

 

About Visa Inc.

Visa Inc. (NYSE: V) is the world’s leader in digital payments. Our mission is to connect the world through the most innovative, reliable and secure payment network - enabling individuals, businesses and economies to thrive. Our advanced global processing network, VisaNet, provides secure and reliable payments around the world, and is capable of handling more than 65,000 transaction messages a second. The company’s relentless focus on innovation is a catalyst for the rapid growth of digital commerce on any device for everyone, everywhere. As the world moves from analog to digital, Visa is applying our brand, products, people, network and scale to reshape the future of commerce. For more information, visit About Visa, visa.com/blog and @VisaNews.

About ICICI Bank

ICICI Bank Ltd (BSE: ICICIBANK, NSE: ICICIBANK and NYSE:IBN) is a leading private sector bank in India. The Bank’s consolidated total assets stood at ₹14,76,014 crore at September 30, 2020. ICICI Bank's subsidiaries include India's leading private sector insurance, asset management and securities brokerage companies, and among the country’s largest private equity firms. It is present across 15 countries, including India.