Visa (V) Aims to Boost Startups Through Accelerator Program
Visa Inc. V recently welcomed five startups to its first Visa Accelerator Program across Asia Pacific in an effort to boost growth prospects of startups, which have been successful in rolling out solutions across their home markets. Shares of Visa have gained 0.7% in the last day’s trading as of Apr 8.
Among hundreds of applicants from all over Asia Pacific and the rest of the world, the startups — Brankas, Curlec, DigitSecure, ModusBox and Open have been selected in the accelerator program.
The program, which will run over a period of the next four to six months, will pave way for the startups to work closely with Visa in rolling out innovative payment solutions. This might fetch them commercial deals with leading organizations across the Asia Pacific region. At the same time, the startups will also have access to the broad network of Visa’s bank and merchant partners. As a result, the program will not only ensure successful utilization of the startups’ innovative ideas but is also likely to extend their presence to newer markets.
Through the program, Visa is likely to empower the startups to leverage numerous financial and technological opportunities prevailing in the Asia Pacific region. The five selected startups share a mutual aim of rolling out advanced payment solutions for bringing more consumers and businesses under the ambit of a growing digital economy. Notably, one of the startups namely Brankas also pursues promotion of the open data environment, which in turn is likely to result in enhanced data-led outcomes.
Shares of this Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) company have gained 7% in the past six months compared with the industry’s rally of 6.6%.
Furthermore, Visa has always been committed to providing necessary assistance to startups, ranging from technological assistance to empowering them with enhanced payments solutions. The operations of such businesses were severely hit by the coronavirus outbreak. In an effort to help the startups, the company launched the accelerator program last year. It has been encouraging startups to innovate newer ways of money movement apart from the traditional means like credit or debit cards.
While the move reinforces Visa’s commitment to help startups in faster adoption of digital means, collaboration with several fintechs have helped the company in enhancing its capabilities and penetrating further into the underserved areas through technological offerings. This, in turn, has led to strengthening of the company’s global presence.
Also, the recent step reinforces Visa’s focus on tapping growth prospects prevailing in the Asia Pacific region, which has produced a host of successful startups. The rapid growth of fintech companies across the region has put pressure on the traditional financial institutions, which have been quite reluctant in embracing technological advancements. With the global payments industry undergoing a massive shift from physical to digital mode triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, it may become difficult for small businesses to cope with the changing technology demands. The accelerator program intends to address this issue and an alliance with Visa will result in enhanced digital capabilities for the startups.
Another company in the same space, namely Mastercard Incorporated MA has also been expanding its Accelerate portfolio, which was launched in 2019 to enable the company to work with fintechs spanning across all stages of growth and transformation.
Stocks to Consider
Some better-ranked stocks in the same space include Diebold Nixdorf, Incorporated DBD and Usio, Inc. USIO, each carrying a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
Diebold Nixdorf and Usio have trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 261.88% and 24.41%, on average, respectively.
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