We identify opportunities for the public and private sectors to work together to create and sustain an open and innovative payments ecosystem so that individuals, businesses, and economies can thrive.
Today’s consumers expect efficiency and ease in all their interactions, especially when making a purchase. Methods of moving money are evolving to keep pace with changing consumer expectations. Security and reliability are fundamental to payments, and they must be the foundation of new innovations.
This commentary piece highlights findings from recent research on the social value of payments innovation. The research focuses on two payment technologies—contactless and tokenization—finding that these innovations provide significantly more benefits to consumers and merchants than to the innovators themselves.
More than four years after the COVID-19 pandemic brought travel to a standstill, international tourism is expected to return to pre-pandemic levels in 2024. This follow-up to our November 2023 paper, Accelerating sustainable tourism, provides a taxonomy of tools that policymakers and regulators at all levels have used to promote sustainability in the travel and tourism space. See the executive summary for a brief overview of our taxonomy.
In this paper, we examine the definition and measurement of sustainable travel and tourism, discuss barriers, and explore the ways that the public and private sectors can shape consumer behavior to accelerate sustainability in the industry. See the executive summary for our key findings and recommendations.
This paper builds on the foundational work of Demystifying ISO 20022 and explores another perspective that is often overlooked—the uniqueness of different use cases and payment methods and the implications of a broad-based approach to ISO 20022 implementation in cross-border payments. To address these challenges, policymakers and the financial services industry can leverage insights from past ISO 20022 implementations, while also applying lessons learned from the cards ecosystem to modernize different payments systems, enhance interoperability, and foster an environment for innovation.
This paper details the Visa Economic Empowerment Institute’s 2023 research into remittance options and costs for 50 global corridors. It finds that an “under 3 percent” cost option was available in 40 of the 50 corridors, but a key need is digitally enabling migrant workers to find the options that are best for them. Other insights are offered from the new data, many of which relate to VEEI’s previous remittance policy recommendations.
This paper illustrates the important role open-loop payments play in creating frictionless, sustainable and inclusive urban mobility ecosystems.
There are three main types of cross-border payment solutions available today, and they operate in different ways across the experience, rules and processes, and infrastructure layers to meet the needs of end users. This paper encourages policymakers to take a more nuanced look at cross-border payments and how solutions satisfy distinct needs as improvement opportunities are identified and prioritized.
There are more cross-border payment attributes than are often discussed, and consumers, businesses, and remittance senders (among others) place different priorities on the attributes according to their needs for a given use case. This paper gives a voice to end users and encourages policymakers to take a more nuanced look at cross-border payments and the distinctive needs they satisfy as improvement opportunities are identified and prioritized.
The paper examines the latest global remittance trends; describes the advantages of digital remittances and digital enablement of migrant workers, their families, and communities; and offers five recommendations for unlocking the benefits of innovation and competition for everyone, everywhere. See these key insights and recommendations for a shorter summary of the paper.
This paper provides our perspective on which of the G7 principles should be considered first; what matters in payment transactions; and, based on our experience operating VisaNet for several decades, what have we learnt that can be applied to CBDC (central bank digital currencies).
Market-led innovation is critical in continuously improving the cross-border payments experience for consumers, businesses, governments, and all participants across the value chain.
Over 100 central banks are in some stage of researching or developing digital currencies. We offer policymakers who are exploring a CBDC a series of tough questions to address as they decide whether and how to move forward.
Messaging standards are core to the payment system, enabling institutions across sectors to connect and transact efficiently and effectively.
A December 2021 update to VEEI’s research on trends in digital remittances.
As more central banks explore the implications of building their own Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC), each individual central bank will be confronted with an obvious challenge: they are not the only ones. We envision and evaluate scenarios of how various CBDC networks could operate around the world.
The experience of Bangladesh can offer insights, practices, and lessons learned that could be applicable to other developing countries.
Policymakers should promote a diverse and open payment landscape where all players commit to security and resilience.
The private and public sectors should work together to digitize remittances from end to end, so receivers can use funds digitally in their everyday lives.
Central banks want to make central bank digital currency work offline (just as banknotes do), and this research shows how that can be done in a secure and compliant manner.
A jobs recovery and a continued focus on money movement efficiency will be key to remittance recovery when the pandemic subsides.
Policymakers can work with the private sector to foster an innovative, open, and resilient payments ecosystem.