Payment leader continues to revolutionize market

General Manager of Visa China Shirley Yu said transformation has become a key word for the global payment leader, Visa Inc. Her comment was made during a four-day Mobile World Congress Shanghai event, which started on Wednesday.

Yu said Visa would transform from a widely-known card company to a digitalized payment company, and added the core competitiveness was the 44 million merchants in 220 countries and the 13,000 financial organizations connected to Visa's network.

Visa has focused on technology innovation, transforming it into a platform for developers around the globe, she said. It also opened the Visa Developer Platform in February 2016 so startup companies, which specialize in application programming interface, could embody their innovations on the platform.

"In the next three years, more than 21 billion mobile devices will be connected," Yu said.

"We have to make the ground work, setting up global partnership networks and grasp related technology in advance, so we can embrace the internet of things and new business models."

Visa's Everywhere Initiative campaign, held for the first time last year, had been a company attempt to seek innovative payment methods from outside the company. The second campaign in China ended on Thursday with five companies standing up from their peers, winning prize and cooperation with Visa.

Beijing-based Mobvoi Inc was one of the winners with its smart watch, Ticwatch, carrying Visa's mobile payment method. The device could provide consumers necessary shopping information, as well as discount recommendations and accessible payment methods.

According to Xie Zhibin, the business development manager of Mobvoi, the company will be set to launch the Ticwatch with Visa mobile payment methods in the overseas markets next year. The schedule for rolling out product in China will be subject to the regulators' permission for Visa mobile payments.