Visa and Vipps, a Norwegian digital wallet, have partnered to speed up mobile payments across Europe.
The partnership between Visa and Vipps aims to serve the surging demand for contactless or digital payments across the region.
Through the partnership, Visa’s clients and partners can now leverage Vipps platform to develop their own digital wallets and offer customers new ways to pay, get paid and manage their money.
According to Visa, the demand for secure, digital commerce solutions across the world has multiplied, following the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Visa European regions managing director Antony Cahill said: “Today, the ability to pay digitally and make cashless payments in-stores, online, in-app, is no longer just a convenience but a necessity. As the leading payment brand, we are keen to make sure consumers and businesses have access to secure, digital commerce, regardless of where they live or what mobile device they have.
“Our partnership with Vipps will make it possible for our bank partners to develop and create easy to use digital payment products and wallets, meeting the growing demand for contactless, online and mobile payments.”
About 75% of Visa payments in Europe are now contactless
It is estimated that in Europe, more than 75% of Visa payments are now contactless. It was also observed that, in this June, ecommerce transactions had increased over 25% year-on-year in twenty European countries.
Vipps CEO Rune Garborg said: “Our approach to international expansion is through collaboration. We believe a collaboration between Visa; the world leader in digital payments and Vipps; the world’s most successful bank-backed wallet will create magic.
“Together we are enabling issuing banks to offer smarter and simplified digital payment services to their customers in Europe and beyond. Together with Visa we will use our best practices, expertise, and experience, to create services that will excite people through world class simplification.”
Vipps is a Norwegian payments app that was launched in 2015.
It claims to have achieved 85% market penetration in the country following its launch, with 3.7 million users in the country. In the last one year, the app witnessed nearly 145% growth in transactions in Norway.
In August, Visa has introduced a new offering ,Visa Smarter Stand-in Processing (Smarter STIP) that helps financial institutions manage transaction processing during service disruptions.
