Jeffrey V. Navarro, country manager, Visa Philippines

PAYMENTS TECHNOLOGY company Visa is looking to launch within the year new artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled capabilities and features to help improve digital payments in the Philippines.

Visa Country Manager Jeffrey V. Navarro said at a media briefing on Tuesday that they plan to launch three of these AI-enabled solutions in the country within the next 12-18 months, namely, Visa Pay, Visa Accept, and Flex Credential.

“The continuously growing digital payment sector in the Philippines makes it a prime environment for technological innovation — one that harnesses AI for the benefit of the digital Filipino business owner and consumer,” Mr. Navarro said.

“The way Visa operates is it’s a partnership model. We can only do it as fast as we can based also on the capabilities of partners. Partners will have varying priorities that they also want to do, so some of the objectives may be aligned with Visa, but it could be that there are more pressing things that they need to do now. So, that discussion happens on a weekly basis in terms of program management. But the intent is, the soonest we can launch it, then that’s what we want,” he said. “We’re really hoping that some of the three that we did mention, within the year, there will be some that we can announce to you guys and say, it’s finally live now.”

Visa Pay connects any participating digital wallet to Visa-accepting merchants in the region. It will be launched through partnerships with leading e-wallets per country in Asia-Pacific, Visa said. For the Philippines, it will be launched through a partnership with Maya.

Meanwhile, Visa Accept will allow micro-sellers to receive payments directly to their eligible Visa debit card using any near-field communication (NFC)-enabled smartphone.

The company first launched Visa Accept in Vietnam, which aims to support microentrepreneurs and informal sellers such as street vendors, freelancers, and small service providers.

Lastly, Flex Credential is a card that allows users to toggle between debit, credit, and reward points.

Visa Flex was first launched in partnership with Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp. (SMBC) and Sumitomo Mitsui Card Company (SMCC), known as Olive, two years ago in Japan. Visa said it is also collaborating with local banks in Vietnam to launch Flex Credential “in the next few months.”

The company also plans to debut a particular solution in the Philippines that may take longer to roll out, Mr. Navarro said.

“[This is] not live today but it’s been in the wheelhouse, and the Philippines has been identified as one of the markets. We want to bring it to life in the near future. Fingers crossed. It’s also one of the capabilities that I hope we can land in the market pretty soon. So, we want to pressure test the engines before we bring it here. That will probably mean a little longer runway,” he said.

Part of Visa’s latest suite of products are solutions related to improving digital identity, the company said. These include Passkeys, Tap to Confirm, and enhanced data to identify and authenticate digital users.

“These solutions will reduce friction for consumers by being digitally native while improving payment security and authorization rates with enhanced transaction data and state-of-the-art fraud prevention techniques.”

It will also launch stablecoin-backed cards, settlement, and programmable money in the Philippines to allow consumers to use their Visa credentials to buy stablecoins with fiat currency and pay with stablecoin across Visa-accepting merchants.

The company is also looking to expand the availability of the Visa Tokenized Asset Platform in Asia-Pacific, which will allow their partners to issue and manage fiat-backed tokens, “offering interconnectivity to public and private blockchains, enabling programmable financing, trading of tokenized assets and facilitating cross-border money movement.”

Visa is also launching Intelligent Commerce, a series of integrated application programming interfaces (APIs) that will allow developers to deploy its AI commerce capabilities. The company said it is exploring partnerships with Ant International, Grab and Tencent for this.

“We are excited to work with local banks, acquirers, merchants, and the government in bringing these innovations to the Philippine market. Working with the right partners will help us translate these global innovations into real, tangible impact for local stakeholders — helping us all advance into the future of payments,” Mr. Navarro said. — A.M.C. Sy