New Visa Award to Incentivize Strong Security and Risk Management Practices in Financial Institutions

Inaugural Visa LEADER Awards recognize financial institutions in Asia Pacific, Central Europe, Middle East and Africa with outstanding risk management

Lagos, July 9, 2012 – Visa Inc. today launched a new award for financial institutions that recognizes shares and promotes best practices in risk. The program aims to advance the risk management standards across all financial institutions by honoring those that have successfully implemented a secure and reliable infrastructure that counters fraud across all channels. The global payments company lauded the efforts of 20 institutions across Asia Pacific, Central Europe, Middle East and Africa (APCEMEA) by recognizing them with the inaugural annual Visa LEADER Award at Visa’s 2012 APCEMEA Security Summit.

“Societies are increasingly moving from cash to electronic payments because they offer greater security, reliability and convenience than cash. As the payment ecosystem evolves and payments become smarter and better, fraud attacks are increasing in sophistication,” said Bryce Thorrold, Head of Risk, Visa sub-Saharan Africa. 

Thorrold continued: “Visa recognizes that combating fraud is not an individual effort, but one that requires collaboration within the whole industry. Financial institutions have been advancing their risk management infrastructure by enhancing their technology, protocols and tools to effectively mitigate emerging threats and trends. Visa clients across APCEMEA have been proactively countering fraud across all channels, and we want to applaud and recognize those that have stood out in their risk management measures, strategies and success rates. We hope this award will encourage others to emulate their success in advancing the security of the industry.”

The LEADER Award is divided into two categories: “Best Issuing Institution” and “Best Acquiring Institution”.

Unified Payment Services (UPS) received “The Best Acquiring Institution in Sub-Saharan Africa” award for its commitment to providing secure and reliable technology in the issuance and acceptance space. UPS has supported government and industry guidelines to implement advanced authentication measures, including EMV “smart cards” and Verified-by-Visa, which continue to uphold best practice to enable safe electronic payments.”

“Unified Payment Services is firmly committed to providing our customers with trusted and secure payment solutions to protect against ever-increasing risks of fraud, said Ochanya Dan-Ugo Group Head, Enterprise Risk Management. “We are honored by this distinction that recognizes our actions and commitment to protect accountholders and will continue to collaborate with Visa to innovate and integrate strong risk practices to combat fraud.”  

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About Visa Security Summit

The Visa Security Summit gathers key risk management professionals in the payment industry. Participants are offered the opportunity to share valuable insight into the security challenges faced by today’s payments industry and hear expert and leading opinions on the future of payment security. The event also features plenary and breakout sessions, meet-the-expert sessions, panel discussions, workshops and an exhibition showcase of leading industry suppliers. More information can be found at: www.visasecuritysummit2012.com.

About Visa Inc.: Visa is a global payments technology company that connects consumers, businesses, financial institutions and governments in more than 200 countries and territories to fast, secure and reliable digital currency. Underpinning digital currency is one of the world’s most advanced processing networks—VisaNet—that is capable of handling more than 20,000 transaction messages a second, with fraud protection for consumers and guaranteed payment for merchants. Visa is not a bank and does not issue cards, extend credit or set rates and fees for consumers. Visa’s innovations, however, enable its financial institution customers to offer consumers more choices: pay now with debit, ahead of time with prepaid or later with credit products. For more information, visit www.corporate.visa.com.. Corporate Backgrounder

Contacts:

Andrew Woolnough Visa Inc. Tel: +65 6671 5866 E-mail: awoolnou@visa.com

Niyi Adebiyi Sesema PR for Visa Inc. 08166109761 Niyi.adebiyi@sesema.com