WIPAY, a European payments company belonging to the Petroprix Group, and Visa, the leading global digital payments company, have announced their alliance, which will enable the fintech to introduce fast and secure digital payments both in more digitally consolidated sectors such as retail, as well as in new environments such as parking lots, vending machines, electric vehicle charging or self-service car washes where cash was predominant until now.
Both companies explained that "this collaboration comes at a time when digitalization is transforming the way we pay and Spaniards are increasing their use of digital payments. WIPAY, as a new Visa associate member, and relying on the network and processing capabilities of its network, VisaNet, begins its journey as a new player enabled to deploy its technology solutions, with a special focus on Android technology".
Llorenç Rubió, payment director de WIPAY, destacó que «nohay duda de que la irrupción de las fintech ha sido clave para innovar y mejorar la experiencia del usuario en el ecosistema de pagos. No obstante, para que todo este potencial se consolide en el mercado, también es importante alianzas como compañías como Visa, pues así cumpliremos con nuestro objetivo en WIPAY: ser un actor relevante en la democratización de los servicios de pago, diseñando soluciones sencillas, seguras y ágiles, ofreciendo a nuestros usuarios la mejor experiencia e incentivando a su vez la actividad en los comercios”.
Eva Ruiz, head of Fintech at Visa in Southern Europe, said that "at Visa we want to continue promoting innovation in payments hand in hand with fintechs, collaborating and supporting them to develop disruptive solutions that allow consumers to pay with their cell phone or card from anywhere and at any time quickly and securely. WIPAY combines technology and payment acceptance services, which will allow consumers to choose where previously there was only the option to pay in cash".
FINTECH ECOSYSTEM
One of the objectives of this alliance is to support the digitalization process in means of payment of the WIPAY solution, a commercial brand of Global Payments Systems, an entity with expansion potential and part of the Petroprix Group. This business group has been working since 2005 in different lines of business within the energy and insurance sectors, reaching a turnover that aims to reach 800 million euros this year.
With this agreement Visa, in addition to promoting the digitization of companies with the potential of WIPAY, seeks to continue driving the fintech ecosystem in Spain, through being a network of networks that connects and collaborates with new players to promote the payments of the future.
Visa has several programs such as Visa Fintech Fast Track or Visa Innovation Program, available from this year in Spain, a platform for collaboration with the 'fintech' that allows them to accelerate their response to the challenges of payment and commerce of the future and "provide innovative solutions for the broad network of Visa customers".