(25 February 2011 – Global) Card giant, Visa has announced the launch of a new person-to-person payment service that lets consumers transfer funds in near real-time to other cards over the VisaNet network.The service was activated for the first time by Russia’s largest payment kiosk operator, 1st Processing Bank (QIWI Group), and Ukraine’s largest bank, PrivatBank earlier this week.
Visa is rolling the service out internationally, with a view to capturing market share from PayPal, and emerging mobile remittance platforms.
Senders simply provide their bank with the recipient’s Visa card number to initiate the payment. Visa says the process does away with the need for senders to fill out complicated forms and provide routing information such as bank codes and branch addresses.
When processed through VisaNet, funds are credited directly to the eligible Visa credit, debit or prepaid account in minutes, freeing recipients from having to visit agent locations to collect cash.