Visa Money Transfer service gaining global adoption

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San Francisco, July 31: : Visa announced the extension of the Visa Money Transfer service to millions of cardholders. With the launch of Visa Money Transfer in Indonesia and the expansion of a program in Singapore, Visa is making it easier and more secure for people in 13 countries in Europe, the Middle East and Asia to send and receive funds.

Visa Money Transfer, a card-based service enabling a Visa cardholder to send funds conveniently and securely to another Visa cardholder, debuted in Ukraine in 2003. Since then, the service has been extended to tens of millions of people who no longer need to wait at a money transfer agent's office, but instead can use the convenience and security of their 16-digit Visa account number to send and receive money. Depending on their issuing bank, they can execute the transfer at a bank branch, using the internet, via an ATM or self-service kiosk.

"Visa's growth has been the result of an unwavering commitment to finding innovative ways to use our network and products to make payments more secure and more convenient," said Elizabeth Buse, Visa's global head of product. "Our approach to person-to-person payments and remittances is to use our global technology to create tailored solutions for various countries and apply what we've learned to expand the service worldwide."

The demand for money transfer includes domestic remittances, person-to-person payments and remittances by expatriate workers who continue to have commitments in their home countries. The World Bank has reported that workers' remittances around the world were US$240 billion in 2007.(1) In addition to cardholder convenience, money transfer programs enable financial institutions to better meet the needs of their existing customers.

Asia Pacific Expansion of Visa Money Transfer

Bank Mandiri, Indonesia's largest bank, made Visa Money Transfer available to approximately eight million Mandiri Visa Debit cardholders in June. The service allows Mandiri Visa Debit cardholders to send money through any of the bank's 3,000 ATMs to any other Visa cardholder in Indonesia. Recipients are able to use the money to make purchases, pay bills or withdraw cash from any Visa or PLUS ATM anywhere Visa is accepted in the world.