Visa launches Southeast Asia data centre

Global payments company Visa has launched two new data centres in Singapore and the United Kingdom. The data centre in Singapore is Visa’s first transaction processing centre in Southeast Asia and will serve clients, cardholders and merchants across the region and in Visa’s global network.The move was made in a bid to increase the speed, resilience and geo-diversity of Visa’s infrastructure, according to a press statement. It also looks to strengthen the company’s ability to deliver more ways to pay in a “hyper-connected global economy”.The new data centres will also complement the company’s existing processing facilities in North America. Meanwhile, Visa also has plans to start processing global transactions in the two facilities in 2018.The new data centre also marks Visa’s third major investment in Singapore over the last two years. Just in September 2016, Visa launched its first international campus of Visa University at its headquarters in Singapore. Meanwhile in April 2016, Visa launched the Singapore Innovation Center, targeted at clients, partners and developers in the region to jointly create next-generation commerce applications.“As home to our Asia Pacific headquarters, Singapore is already a major hub for the Visa business. 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,” Chris Clark, group executive, Asia Pacific, Visa, said.“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,” Kelvin Wong, assistant managing director, Singapore Economic Development Board, said.“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,” Rajat Taneja, executive vice president of technology at Visa, said.In May 2016, Frederique Covington took on the senior vice president and chief marketing officer role for Visa. Reporting to Visa’s newly appointed EVP and global chief marketing officer Lynn Biggar, Covington takes over from Rajiv Kapoor who retired from his position at Visa after almost 19 years.Visa also let go of its digital marketing team in Singapore in November 2016. The team was headed by Nicki Kenyon, vice president, marketing APAC. Others on the team included Gurmit Singh, director, digital marketing; Thomas Lee, director, digital marketing and Yu Hung Khoo, senior business leader, digital strategy and marketing APAC.