Modi appointed director of e-Visa SE Asia

Mumbai:

In his new assignment, Modi will be responsible for driving Visa's electronic and mobile commerce initiatives across the Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and India. He will be based in Singapore.

Prior to this Modi was Visa's director, business development and marketing for South Asia, based in Bangalore. He joined Visa India in March 1998 and in the four years since then he contributed significantly to consolidate the Visa brand in India and help it attain market leadership.

On Modi's new assignment, Visa Asia Pacific general manager and senior vice president Mark Burbidge said: "Internet usage is growing by leaps and bounds in Asia Pacific. As a natural corollary, trade over the Net will witness a significant increase. eMarketer 2001 estimates that active Internet users in the Asia Pacific region alone will touch 118.8 million, accounting for 27 per cent of active Internet users worldwide. This will result in B2C e-commerce revenues of $26.4 billion) — an over 800-per cent jump in revenues from the year 2000 figures of $3.2 billion. Security of payment in digital commerce thus assumes prime importance."

Burbidge added: "Having successfully launched the Verified by Visa pilot initiative in India, Vikram will now take on a broader role in seeing to the successful delivery of secure payment in the virtual and physical worlds across Southeast Asia, through the world's number one payment brand."

Visa launched e-Visa Asia Pacific in September 2001. e-Visa Asia Pacific's main goal is to enable the execution of Visa's regional payment authentication strategy, a part of Visa's broader global vision of universal commerce or u-commerce: the ability to make payments securely anytime, anywhere and anyhow.

Verified by Visa is an important step in this direction. Launched by Visa in key markets across Asia Pacific, it enhances online security of credit and debit card payments. It enables participating card-issuing banks to validate a cardholder's identity through authentication methods, including passwords, digital certificates or biometrics during the online checkout process.

This initiative goes a long way in addressing consumer demand for more online security, as was revealed in a recent research commissioned by Visa in key markets in Asia Pacific. ICICI Bank is the first bank in India to adopt Verified by Visa. ICICI Bank Visa cardholders can use their cards at www.fabmart.com, www.traveijini.com and www.rediff.com for secure online payments.

Visa is the world's leading payment brand. Visa-branded cards generate more than $2 trillion in annual volume worldwide and are accepted at more than 24 million merchant locations around the world, including more than 750,000 ATMs. Visa is a leader in Internet payment and electronic commerce, with more than 50 per cent of electronic transactions being made with Visa cards.

In Asia Pacific, Visa has a greater market share than all other brands combined with more than 56-per cent of the retail sales volume. During 2001, a total of $480 billion was spent in Asia Pacific using Visa cards — a growth of 70 per cent over the previous year.