Visa expands global transaction processing with facilities in Singapore, UK

Visa, a global payments technology company, has announced the expansion of transaction-processing capabilities in two state-of-the-art data centers in Singapore and the UK.
The new global processing hubs will increase the speed, resilience, and geo-diversity of Visa’s infrastructure while strengthening the company’s ability to deliver new and more sophisticated ways to pay in today’s hyper-connected global economy.
“Commerce and payments are in the midst of a historic shift from analog to digital. A growing majority of people around the globe are leaving cash behind and reaching instead for their cards and devices to pay,” said Rajat Taneja, executive vice president of technology at Visa.
“With our technology investments in Asia and Europe, we’re scaling up our infrastructure to meet the explosive growth in digital and mobile payments, while maintaining the secure, convenient and always-on service that our clients and partners expect.”
The Singapore and UK data centers will complement Visa’s existing processing facilities in North America. With four synchronized data centers, Visa’s expanded footprint will boost the resilience of its infrastructure, minimizing the likelihood of service disruptions to Visa’s 16,600 financial institutions, millions of merchant acceptance locations, and 3 billion cards.
The two centers are equipped with the latest technology, including high-performance hardware and energy-efficient power and cooling infrastructure. Visa plans to start processing global transactions in the two facilities in 2018.
Visa’s data center in Singapore is the company’s first transaction-processing center in Southeast Asia and will serve clients, cardholders, and merchants across the region and in Visa’s global network.
“As home to our Asia Pacific headquarters, Singapore is already a major hub for the Visa business,” said Chris Clark, group executive, Asia Pacific, Visa.
“With our new processing facility in Singapore, we’re strengthening our ability to meet rising demand for digital payments, while driving the pace of payment innovation across the Asia Pacific region.”
“We are delighted that Visa has chosen Singapore as the location for its new data center, reinforcing Singapore’s position as a trusted business and technology partner,” said Kelvin Wong, assistant managing director, Singapore Economic Development Board.
“This investment strengthens the sophistication of Visa’s business footprint in Singapore and is a testament to Singapore’s regional leadership in data management and connectivity.”
The new data center is Visa’s third major investment in Singapore in the last two years. In September 2016, Visa launched the first international campus of Visa University at its headquarters in Singapore. In April 2016, Visa launched the Singapore Innovation Center, a destination for clients, partners and developers across the region to work alongside Visa experts and jointly create next-generation commerce applications.
In June 2016, Visa Inc. announced the completion of its acquisition of Visa Europe, starting a multi-year process to combine the two companies into a unified global organization with a shared technology platform. This integration brings 3,200 European clients onto VisaNet, Visa’s global transaction processing network, and involves a retrofit of Visa’s legacy data center in the UK.
Once fully retrofitted, the facility will bring increased operational resilience for clients in the region while accelerating the speed-to-market for new payment innovations in the European market.
“The launch of our state-of-the-art data center in Europe is a critical milestone, enabling all our clients and partners to take advantage of Visa’s global technical resources and assets,” said Bill Sheedy, CEO Europe, Visa Inc.