Visa Inc opens new technology development centre in Bengaluru, unveils mVisa

BENGALURU: Visa Inc, the world's largest payments network, is setting up a new technology research and development centre in Bengaluru that will create 1,000 new software-developer jobs in India. The company also plans to launch a new mobile payment service for the country called mVisa.

The mVisa payment service will be tested later this year with merchants across Bengaluru region and with customers of banks including Axis Bank, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank and State Bank of India, the US-headquartered company said.

Visa's new 1,000-strong Bengaluru team has been tasked with building technology solutions that will make it easier for application developers to access the company's 400-payment products and services in order to build their own payment experiences that can work across a broad range of connected devices. The R&D centre is one of the several facilities planned by Visa in the US and Asia, the company said.

“India has fast become one of the world's most important technology epicenters with an incredible pool of technology talent,“ Charlie Scharf, chief executive of Visa Inc, said in a statement.

“Our new centre in Bengaluru, which complements the others planned for Singapore and the US, will help Visa accelerate the development of next generation payment solutions that enable secure, digital commerce through connected devices like mobile phones, PCs, tablets and even cars.“

According to a report by Juniper, global mobile payment transactions are projected to touch $3.27 trillion by 2018.