Visa Europe Announces New Digital Enablement Programme with Launch Partners to Include Google’s Android Pay and Leading UK Banks

London, 18 May 2016: Visa Europe today announces the launch of the new Visa Europe Digital Enablement Programme (VEDEP), leveraging the power of the Visa network to simplify the implementation of third party mobile wallets.

Launch partners of the programme include Google and its Android Pay platform along with many leading UK banks.

VEDEP gives banks and technology companies a turn-key framework that incorporates Visa’s secure token technology, launched last year.

Visa Europe Payment Tokenisation Service helps keep consumers’ card details secure, regardless of how they make a payment by substituting a series of numbers – a token – for the actual account information so that wherever token data is stored, the underlying card details remain unexposed. Tokenisation also has a proven track record of facilitating the on-boarding of Issuers onto new third party wallet services.

When banks participate in the VEDEP programme, they automatically have access to any third party wallet provider that is a VEDEP participant.

This gives all parties:

●Faster integration without having to go through complicated bi-lateral legal agreements,

●A commercial framework with no fees passing between technology partners and banks

●Enhanced security and consumer data protection through Visa’s secure tokenisation technology; and

●Scale as third party wallet providers will have access to Visa Europe’s relationship with more than 3000 banks.

“Banks are faced with many challenges today when it comes to keeping up with the accelerated pace of technology, so we are excited to launch VEDEP to give them a faster, smoother path of entry to third party wallets alongside our secure tokenisation technology,” said Norman Butler, Executive Director Corporate Development for Visa Europe. “Mobile payments are expected to grow exponentially in the coming years and Android is helping more and more people benefit from the mobile web so we are excited to include them as a launch partner.”

The VEDEP programme launches in the UK and will roll out throughout Europe in the coming months.