Visa selects five startups across Asia Pacific for first accelerator program

SINGAPORE, April 7, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Visa, the world's leader in digital payments, has selected five startups to be a part of the first Visa Accelerator Program in Asia Pacific: Brankas, Curlec, DigitSecure, ModusBox and Open.

Over the next four to six months, the startups will focus on creating defined commercial opportunities to collaborate on new payment solutions with Visa and its extensive network of bank and merchant partners. A key goal for the accelerator program is to support startups that have launched successful solutions in their home markets as they plan their next stage of growth.

"Hundreds of startups came forward with outstanding ideas for new and enhanced commerce experiences, but the five participants we've selected truly stood out," said Chris Clark, regional president, Asia Pacific, Visa. "We're excited to work with each of the startups in our first cohort to bring their concepts to life and expand their businesses into new markets across the region."

The five startups will work on some of the most pressing financial and technological opportunities in Asia Pacific:

• Brankas, a fintech that provides financial software and solutions, will leverage the open banking and open data environment to create new payment and data-led experiences
• Curlec, a subscription management platform and ModusBox, an open source platform for real-time payments, will develop new ways to pay and be paid digitally to help drive financial inclusion for more consumers and businesses
• Open, a neo-banking platform for small businesses, and DigitSecure, an omnichannel payments acceptance platform, will find new ways to support small businesses in managing and streamlining their operations digitally as they adapt to changing technology demands

The Visa Accelerator Program is part of Visa's broader set of platforms and activities for the startup community in Asia Pacific. For more information, visit https://www.visa.com.sg/apaccelerator

About Visa Inc.

Visa Inc. (NYSE: V) is the world's leader in digital payments. Our mission is to connect the world through the most innovative, reliable and secure payment network - enabling individuals, businesses and economies to thrive. Our advanced global processing network, VisaNet, provides secure and reliable payments around the world, and is capable of handling more than 65,000 transaction messages a second. The company's relentless focus on innovation is a catalyst for the rapid growth of connected commerce on any device, and a driving force behind the dream of a cashless future for everyone, everywhere. As the world moves from analog to digital, Visa is applying our brand, products, people, network and scale to reshape the future of commerce. For more information, visit About Visa, visa.com/blog and @VisaNews.

APPENDIX

Selection of quotes from the first cohort of the Visa Accelerator Program: Brankas, Curlec, DigitSecure, ModusBox and Open.

Brankas

"Brankas applied to the Visa Accelerator Program because we see untapped potential to co-create a new open finance economy across the region. By connecting with Visa's global network and state-of-the-art APIs, Brankas and Visa can accelerate digital financial inclusion and enable the next generation of financial technology solutions." - Todd Schweitzer, Founder & CEO, Brankas

Curlec

"We applied to the Visa program as we felt that Visa's global scale could help us accelerate the growth of our business, particularly outside our home country of Malaysia. We're extremely excited to get started as we feel that Visa's vision of the subscription economy and the future of commerce deeply aligns to ours, and we look forward to scaling this to the rest of Asia Pacific and beyond." - Zac Liew, Co-founder & CEO, Curlec

DigitSecure

"We are excited to join the inaugural cohort of a select few in the Visa Accelerator Program and get visibility on the global stage as one of the elite startups accepted into the program. Visa's validation of our app-first approach to digital payments acceptance will go a long way in championing DigitSecure's mission to simplify the process of empowering businesses, large and small, for omnichannel acceptance." - Jay Krishna, Founder, DigitSecure

"The exclusive mentorship from both Visa and 500 Startups plus the global access will put us on a fast track for commercial agreements, co-creation, and even potential funding."- Seshadri Kulkarni, CEO, DigitSecure

ModusBox

"ModusBox is thrilled to join the Visa Accelerator program. This is an opportunity to highlight how we can innovatively apply Visa's extensive catalogue of value-added services to the wider gamut of payment systems, particularly the growing number of real-time push payment networks worldwide. It's our belief that Visa can play a major role in accelerating the work we're doing to drive access to inclusive financial services. We look forward to collaborating with Visa and its partners in this program to demonstrate our POC and jointly work with countries to build inclusive and responsible national payment networks." - Steve Haley, Director of Economic Development, ModusBox

Open

"Open has been leading the SME neo-banking space in India. Of late, we have seen many corporates, developers and non-fintechs wanting to embed fintech and financial services into their platforms. This led us to launch Zwitch – an end-to-end developer friendly embedded finance platform. We are excited to be part of the Visa Accelerator Program and look forward to leveraging Visa's strength in card issuance, cross border payments and payment APIs to co-create new products that cater to the emerging embedded finance needs of corporates, developers and non-fintech platforms" - Anish Achuthan, Co-founder & CEO, Open Financial Technologies Pvt Ltd