Visa’s approach to innovation in the 21st century is anchored in the belief that paying with Visa in the digital world should be just as simple – if not simpler – than when you pay with Visa in the physical world. It should also be just as secure, rewarding and convenient.
What further compels our innovation strategy is an exceptionally large opportunity to accelerate the adoption of digital payments globally, as $17 trillion of cash and checks are still in use globally.
Over the last several years, Visa has fundamentally evolved both our platforms and how we work with partners and clients to encourage a broadening of the commerce ecosystem.
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What has not changed is our focus, which has remained the same from the first bankcard to the digital wallet: to provide our clients and partners with access to our network, products, tools and expertise to enable their growth and success.
OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDIO
The Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) Innovation Studio is geared towards helping Visa drive its goals of co-creating the next generation of commerce experiences and growing the continued adoption of digital payments. The aim is to achieve this through:
- Accelerating digital issuance
- Empowering small merchants
- Development and deployment of new technologies, such as scan to pay
VISION FOR THE STUDIO
The Innovation Studio helps Visa’s clients and partners in the SSA region to collaborate, co create and explore the future of commerce and the impact of new technologies on the way we shop, pay, and are paid.
The Innovation Studio is a realization of our vision to be the engine of commerce and to provide individuals, businesses, and economies the access they need to thrive.
Kenya is home to a thriving community of start-ups, incubators, and accelerators.
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Visa’s Innovation Studio offers a glimpse at the workplace of the future – a place where employees, clients and partners can seamlessly collaborate to create solutions, develop user experiences and share ideas.
THE JOURNEY THUS FAR
In the last one year of having the Innovation Studio operational in Nairobi, we have managed to:
- Engage 1,520 different participants who have visited the studio.
- Hold 116 partner engagements with players from across the payments landscape, including traditional banking partners, merchants and fintechs from 24 countries.
- Hold 19 co-creations, design sprints and discovery sessions, as well as 3 Pilot and Proof of Concepts (POCs)
OFFERINGS AND ENGAGEMENTS
- Innovation Experience – Engage with key trends, technologies and Visa capabilities driving innovation, virtually or in our physical spaces.
- Discovery session – Go deep into key innovation themes and build a joint innovation roadmap.
- Co-Creation – Digital product development sprint delivering a user-validated prototype, solution architecture and path to pilot.
- Design Sprint – Specialist design expertise for rapid prototyping, workshops and UX validation.
- User Experience (UX) Health Check – Psychometric tests on current UX Journeys to identify gaps and opportunities.
