Visa has partnered with Fintech District , an international community of reference for the Italian fintech scene, to facilitate the growth of fintech ecosystem in Italy. Visa has been on the frontier of innovation thanks to an open network that connects 14,900 financial institutions and fintechs in over 200 countries and over 80 million points of sale.

The payments landscape is constantly evolving and, when it comes to innovation, fintechs are at the forefront. Visa has long been active in the fintech landscape with a variety of programmes that support growth, and with an ‘open’ approach to its network that allows partners to take advantage of Visa’s global scale, technologies, and security performance. The partnership with Fintech District will allow Visa to further expand its network in Italy, giving it the opportunity to collaborate with numerous companies in the Italian fintech scene and to do its part to contribute to the growth of the sector.

Representatives from the Fintech District stated that there are over 250 fintech companies in their community and some of these have distinguished themselves in the world of payments in recent years by proposing new models that have revolutionised the market. They are certain that direct dialogue with a player like Visa will give a further boost to the sector for the creation of solutions capable of satisfying the increasingly evolved expectations of consumers. Their goal is to encourage dialogue for the creation of open innovation projects and the collaboration between fintech and incumbent is in fact confirmed as the key to the evolution of financial services.

Visa’s projects that assist the fintech ecosystem Among the initiatives, there is the ‘Fintech Fast Track’ programme, which has so far helped around a hundred European fintechs to access the payment system as direct participants, allowing them to provide their customers with better products and services, including a set of new payment solutions. Another important initiative is the Fintech Partner Connect, a programme that provides financial institutions and merchants with a suite of advanced features, combining Visa expertise and solutions with those of carefully selected fintech partners. On the sustainability front, for example, Visa collaborates with ecolytiq, one of its first fintech partner in this area, whose innovative Sustainability-as-a-Service solution analyses payment data in real time to integrate each transaction with individual calculation of the environmental footprint, for example in relation to CO2, and suggests actions to offset it.

Among the latest entries in the Fintech Partner Connect is Switcho , a member of the Fintech District community, who developed the homonymous app to help its users, including SMEs and professionals, analyse recurring expenses, such as electricity, gas, internet, telephone, and insurance, helping them to save. .