Visa-AP sign MoU to make Vizag India's first 'less cash' city

New Delhi/Visakhapatnam: Global payments network Visa on Wednesday signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Andhra Pradesh government to help transform Vishakhapatnam into India's first 'less cash' city.

This initiative is designed to provide the foundation for the city to emerge as India's 'Fintech Valley', an official statement said.

"Through this project, we hope to see a three-fold to five-fold increase on the 6,400 merchants currently accepting digital payments, and to increase customer adoption of electronic payments by 75 per cent to 100 per cent," said Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu.

To accelerate its journey to less cash and to becoming India's Fintech Valley, Visa will focus on driving payments digitisation, and work with the city to help build the talent pool required in city organisations



and in academia on emerging technologies like blockchain.

Another focus area of Visa will be to provide support to FinTech start-ups by providing access to Visa's APIs, providing subject matter expertise, and participating in boot camps and hackathons.

"We propose to undertake this initiative as a part of Visa's global financial inclusion efforts that aim to provide 500 million underserved with a payment account by 2020," said TR Ramachandran, Group Country Manager, Visa India and South Asia.

J A Chowdary, Special Chief Secretary and IT Advisor to Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister, said that FinTech Valley will act as a facilitator for information flow -- a playground for innovators to disrupt traditional processes with new, more efficient, economically beneficial technologies that will change the way India does business.