To accelerate the adoption of mobile payments and tokenization in Latin America and the Caribbean, Visa has made an investment in YellowPepper, which will help support growing opportunities for tokenized payments, increasing access to Visa application programming interfaces (APIs) and expanding the usage of push payments via Visa Direct, Visa said in an announcement.
“Through our investment in YellowPepper, we want to bring the best of Visa’s technology and capabilities to a broader set of partners and clients across the region,” Eduardo Coello, regional president for Visa Latin America and the Caribbean, said in the announcement. “Visa is always looking for new investments that allow us to accelerate innovation for our clients, finding new ways to support our clients’ technology. YellowPepper’s extensive experience in the region and the strength of their existing client base makes them an ideal partner to build the future of payments.”
YellowPepper offers Visa’s secure, digital payment token services as a certified Visa Token Service Provider. With this technology, nearly any internet-connected device can become a more secure place for commerce, regardless of form factor.
“We have been a go-to service for major financial institutions and retailers for years and now are expanding our secure and efficient technology to build out a robust ecosystem within Latin America and the Caribbean to make interacting with, managing and accepting cashless payments as easy as possible,” Serge Elkiner, co-founder and chief executive officer at YellowPepper, added.
The investment comes after Visa and YellowPepper initially established a multi-year partnership in 2017. Additionally, the investment is the first of its kind for Visa in the region, which reinforces a shared vision for increasing usage of mobile payments throughout Latin American and the Caribbean, according to the company.
Visa’s investment in YellowPepper is part of the company’s global strategy to open up the Visa ecosystem and support a broad range of new partners. The company continually evaluates platforms and technologies — particularly those that have the potential to advance digital payments for Visa’s clients and their customers. Previously, Visa has made investments in Chain, Klarna, Marqeta, solarisBank, Square and Stripe, among others.