homebusiness Newscompanies NewsEXCLUSIVE | Visa CEO says he is looking to invest in AI startups in India
EXCLUSIVE | Visa CEO says he is looking to invest in AI startups in India
Watch Ryan Mcinerney, CEO, Visa Inc is in an exclusive conversation with CNBC-TV18 Managing Editor Shereen Bhan at the Rising Bharat Summit 2024 in New Delhi.
Visa CEO Ryan McInerney acknowledges the transformative impact of Indian fintechs on global payment systems, particularly in the realm of QR payments. Speaking at the Rising Bharat Summit 2024, McInerney highlights how India's innovative approach has paved the way for a paradigm shift towards QR as a preferred form factor, reshaping the future of transactions worldwide. Mcinerney is also optimistic about generative AI and is looking to invest in generative AI startups in India.
Below are the edited excerpts:
Q: How have Indian fintechs changed Visa?
A: Indian fintechs have opened up our minds to the power of QR payments. We are looking at other markets around the world where QR might be the form factor that users prefer. We don't need cards, we will use QR and that will be the form factor that will then allow people to tap into the Visa network as an example. And that very much came from the inspiration of what we have seen happen here in India.
Q: Let's talk about the UPI moment in India. It's pre-UPI and post-UPI; that's how the digital payment network is being seen. Do you see UPI as a competition? Or do you see UPI as a collaborator?
A: What's happened with UPI in India is nothing short of remarkable. It has accelerated financial inclusion in this country by more than a decade. The speed, the growth, the adoption, and the user experiences are nothing short of remarkable.
We see it as an opportunity for Visa, and I believe that we can help build on the financial inclusion that has happened as a result of UPI and help turn that into financial empowerment by working with the banks in India and the ecosystem in India to create new credit products. To help people grow up the credit ladder, help them build wealth, and help empower them financially, as a result of the great work that's happened with UPI in India.
Q: In the next five years, how is Visa going to operate in those spaces you talked about? How do you intend to leverage the advantage in that?
A: With the digitisation of payments in India, there's still more than a trillion dollars in cash. We still have an opportunity to partner and to work to help digitise that cash. But then building on the consumer payments that you and I make every day, there's enormous opportunity in B2B payments and in government payments. There's an enormous opportunity in transit systems. We have been involved in more than 750 transit systems around the world, helping them operate more efficiently by digitising the payments.
We see remittances as a tremendous opportunity. We have built out a platform, Visa Direct, where we have 8.5 billion endpoints, cards, accounts and digital wallets, all around the world. We're putting that platform to work to make remittances in and out of India and all over the world. This is the biggest corridor for remittances in the world and it makes them more transparent, faster, cheaper and has a better user experience for both the sender and the receiver. That's a tremendous opportunity for us to continue to help and add value here in India.
Q: Talking about innovation, Visa has decided to put together a war chest of $100 million to look at nurturing AI across different startups. Take us through the idea behind what you intend to do. Is that going to be a focus area for Visa here in India as well?
A: We were looking for companies that were using generative AI to create new commerce experiences. We wanted to find them and nurture them. We have a program called Fintech Fast Track to bring them onto the Visa platform. We said, why don't we put together an investment fund so that we can help find some of those entrepreneurs, those people who are dreaming big about how they could use generative AI to transform commerce, and why don't we invest in them.
We are big believers in the power of AI. We have been a leader in AI for 30 years, using predictive AI to build our products and services and secure our network. We have been very aggressive in adopting generative AI in our company. We have made all of the tools and co-pilots available to our employees around the world.
Q: How much have you invested on that side?
A: I couldn't give you the number. But if you went and talked to any one of our employees in India around the world and said, tell me about what Ryan's been talking to you about generative AI—every team in Visa is expected to have a roadmap and a plan of how they're using generative AI to make their function more effective and efficient—finance, HR products, obviously technology.
For the full interview, watch the accompanying video
(Edited by : Ajay Vaishnav)
First Published: Mar 19, 2024 9:42 PM IST
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