Visa Opens Developer Center, Offers Access to Digital Wallet

Today Visa announced the launch of the Visa Developer Center, a website that provides developers with the programming and development tools they need to create and deploy payment applications. Visa says that it hopes to simplify and accelerate the development and adoption of payments solutions around the world with the help of this resource.

The Visa Developer Center provides a number of tools to financial institutions, merchants, mobile network operators and game developers to help them integrate Visa payment functionality into their products. Resources include payments expertise, open application programming interfaces (APIs) and development tools from Visa and vendor partners CyberSource, Authorize.Net and PlaySpan.

With this launch, Visa is also giving developers beta access to its V.me digital wallet solution, which will officially launch in early 2012. V.me will allow online and point-of-sale (POS) payments via PCs and mobile devices using Visa and non-Visa accounts. The digital wallet will work via a click-to-buy method on a computer, a touch-to-buy method on a mobile browser and a wave-to-buy method for in-person POS transactions using near-field communication technology.

Beyond its mobile wallet, Visa hopes to speed up adoption of its version of P2P called Visa Personal Payments, a PlaySpan solution that enables payments through games and social media, Authorize.Net online and mobile payment acceptance for small businesses, and CyberSource payment and risk management for medium and large businesses.

"The convergence of web, mobile and social networks is revolutionizing the way people buy and sell and is driving the creation of new and innovative ways to pay," said Jim McCarthy, global head of product for Visa, in a release announcing the launch of the new website. "The Visa Developer Center ensures that application developers, especially those constructing eCommerce, mobile and social applications, have access to Visa capabilities, while still maintaining Visa's industry-leading security standards."

Related Articles: Visa Signs Mobile Payment Deal With Google, Visa's Digital Wallet Is An Inevitable Step Toward A Cardless Future, Visa to Offer P2P Payments through Fiserv and CashEdge