With increasing competition in the payments space, established players are moving with speed to maintain market share as well as offer competitive products to users. Visa, one of the world’s most imminent payments company has today announced the opening up of its API to developers for the first time in its 60 years of existence. The move is aimed at driving innovation in payments and commerce. The APIs will be available through the Visa Developer platform with developers accessing technologies including account holder identification, person-to-person payment capabilities, secure in-store and online payment services such as Visa Checkout, currency conversion and consumer transaction alerts. Visa plans to provide access to more of its payment capabilities over the next year.
Visa has been conducting beta trials with several startups and developers before officially launching it to the public. Visa will also offer a sandbox testing tool offering developers a plug and play experience, as well as access to Visa test data. The payments firm is also opening up Visa Developer engagement centers to foster collaboration with application developers in San Francisco, Dubai, Singapore, Miami and São Paolo. Developers can access the platform here.
