Andreana Pappas
Country Manager Greece
Visa
Visa
The growth platform
for Fintech stars in SEE.
One program. Three hubs. Borderless access.
Applications are now open until April 15th
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The Visa Innovation Program is a fintech pilot-centered collaboration platform spanning across Southeast Europe. The Program is designed to help you scale, supercharge your value proposition and engage with some of the leading financial institutions in Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey.
Core Value Proposition
PoC/Partnership opportunities
Introduction to Visa and Visa’s clients to fast-track, test, validate and implement your solutions within Visa’s vast network of financial institutions and corporate partners.
Personal Concierge
Dedicated support by a prominent design thinking expert throughout the program to guide you and help with all of your business needs and PoC efforts
Region-Wide Market Access
Access to business opportunities across the SEE region and local support from Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey’s most active fintech ecosystem players.
Funding
Connect with some of the leading VC funds from CEE. The most promising companies could receive up to EUR 100k investment from Eleven.
Mentorship
Top level industry mentors with diverse expertise to help you in the most essential aspects of your business.
Vibrant Network
Masterclasses, workshops and peer to peer gatherings for practical knowledge exchange with a diverse entrepreneurial network of global fintech industry luminaries and investors.
Showcasing
Large exposure as part of the Program and recognition from some of the leading payment brands in the world.
Tech Stack
Startup perks (up to$200,000), essential tools and industry data, Visa API’s
Applications are now open until April 15th
The Program in Numbers
579
Number of applications
49
Accepted Startups
22
Successful pilots
455
Mentorship hours
168
Meetings with Visa & Banks
€
35.7
m
Raised by the fintechs
50
Investor intros
Program Partners
The Visa Innovation Program is run by the collective efforts of our local partners in Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey. They bring their know-how, network, domain expertise and operational resources to make the Program a reality.
Eleven is one of the leading early-stage VC’s in Southeast Europe, investing in startups since 2012. With 150 collective investments over 7 years, Eleven’s team has been instrumental in catalyzing the regional startup ecosystem.
Crowdpolicy provides civictech and fintech enterprise information systems and open innovation services since 2012 in Greece and Cyprus. Over the years, the team has implemented various open innovation initiatives.
Hackquarters is the leading startup accelerator and corporate innovation partner, based in London and Istanbul, combining superb global reach with deep local knowledge.
The Timeline
Open call for Applications
Program Start
• Workshops
• Design Thinking sprints
• Design Thinking sprints
Demo Day
Selection
• Discovery sessions
• One-on-One meetings with PoC partners
• One-on-One meetings with PoC partners
• PoC/Pilot development
• Mentoring sessions
• Mentoring sessions
Challenges
We are looking for the best and brightest companies to address our challenges. The applicants need to provide proven solutions to drive innovation and technological advancement for Visa and Visa’s clients.
If you believe your company addresses one or more of the challenges, you are welcome to apply and become part of the Visa Innovation family.
Empowering SMEs
Accelerate SMEs post COVID-19 pandemic recovery with digital solutions
- Support SMEs for opening/growing e-commerce business
- Innovate across digital onboarding process chain
- Proliferate soft POS use cases with enhanced UI
- Bring best of both worlds, online & instore shopping, under hybrid UX
- Help SMEs grow business through credit/instalments with innovative models (ex. Buy now, pay later models)
- Leveraging PSD2 to allow every SME to become a fintech company
Special project with UBB: Introduce QR codes, payment requests, “pay by link” or other solution that could be embedded in the UBB mobile banking directly, or as stand-alone app.
Unlocking new payment flows
Move cash-intensive payments on the card rails
- Migrate cash dependent B2B, C2B or B2C payments on card rails, e.g. procurement platforms, merchant chargebacks etc. stepping on Visa Direct, B2B Connect etc.
- Move gig-economy payments (i.e. from employer to gig-workers) on card rails.
- Innovate solutions building on Visa’s vision on becoming network of networks, e.g. RTP/A2A, blockchain/distributed ledger, cryptocurrency, etc.
Designing next-gen payments experience
Introduce new type of payment experiences and infrastructure for the post-plastic world
- Create financial inclusion and innovative propositions for millennials, un/underbanked, citizens subject to government support
- Design aggregated retail banking proposition platforms, e.g. individuals’ management of cash flow, personal finances, investments, savings, etc.
- Imagine innovative solutions to digitalize governments payments, i.e. payments to government and disbursements from government
- Digitalize end user experience (e.g. digital card issuance, automated credit scoring, instalments, credit at check-out, buy now & pay later)
- Create value-added services to enable Visa’s network partners (e.g. fraud management - AML, cybersecurity, digital issuance, payment credentials)
Building smarter cities
Help governments in embedding payment as part of their digital city experience design efforts
- Leverage on open data to roll our digital-first, interconnected, services for tourists and locals in the area of urban mobility, public administration and utilities
- Improve the safety and wellbeing for the visitors and local communities via digital tools
- Simplify public services’ access and usage in the post-Covid era
Who Should Apply
If your team has already completed a proof of concept related to the proposed challenges or has a market-ready solution, you are the right fit for the Visa Innovation Program.
01
Stage
Startups and scale ups having a market-tested solution
02
Team
An experienced team with entrepreneurial spirit
03
Solution
A solution addressing one of our Challenges
04
Commitment
Dedication for pilot collaboration with banks and enterprises
Applications are now open until April 15th
Testimonials
“The largest value of the program was access to the global network of partners, customers and a startup ecosystem. Iris Solutions pivoted from a B2C to B2B solutions company. We verified a fully new effective business model and strategy.”
Galya Dimitrova
CEO
Iris Solutions
“The program was pivotal in establishing key partnerships with Visa partners and Visa’s network and exploring new service lines for very small businesses. During the program duration we managed to expand our merchant outlets from 1100 to 1500 with promising collaborations in place and an extended contact network.”
Evangelos Rossetos
Co-founder
Simply POS
“The Program helped us to develop our product for small and medium enterprises with leading experts from San Francisco and London. A key step in our growth is the opening of our office in Berlin, located next to the Visa Innovation Center in Germany.”
Hristo Borisov
Co-founder and CEO
Payhawk
“This program gave us a unique opportunity to accelerate our product to market alongside some of the best mentors and leaders in the business. We also received the partnership with Raiffeisen Bank to build, test and create the future of payments with new biometric technologies that have never been done before on the Bulgarian market.”
Mihai Draghici
Founder & CEO
Paybyface
“Visa Innovation Program provided us with the support, motivation and partnerships from Visa’s wider network we needed to overcome the obstacles we faced and eventually launch our product for a PoC in the Greek market.”
Elena Avatangelou
Co-founder, Service & Product Design
Giving Streets
“The program was pivotal in establishing Glocalzone’s key partnerships with Visa and Visa’s network and entering new markets. What’s more, we grew our customer base from 10 to 150k users and our valuation increased 4 times during the period we were in the program.”
Doğan Turan
Co-founder
Glocalzone
Network
Some of Our Mentors
Ata Uzunhasan
Managing Director
Galata Business Angels
Galata Business Angels
Athina Chatzipetrou
Chief Executive Officer
Hellenic Development Bank SA
Hellenic Development Bank SA
Goh Hirose
Innovation and Investment Leader
BNP Paribas Cardiff
BNP Paribas Cardiff
Marcel Dridje
Board Member
European Business Angels Network
European Business Angels Network
Mariela Atanassova
Head of PI Business Division
Raiffeisenbank Bulgaria
Marisa Melliou
Group Audit Director
OPAP
OPAP
Nedelcho Spasov
Co-founder
Management Financial Group
Management Financial Group
Nicolas Nicola
Director - Strategic Corporate Projects for Banking & Payments
THALES
THALES
Ozan Öztürk
Strategy & Business Development Senior Director, SEE
Visa
Professor Markos Zachariadis
Greensill Chair in Financial Technology
Alliance Manchester Business School
Alliance Manchester Business School
Sevdalina Vassileva
General Manager (Greece, Cyprus, Bulgaria)
Visa
Visa
Shahar Friedman
Head of Visa Innovation Studio Tel-Aviv
Visa
Visa
Svetozar Georgiev
Co-founder
Telerik Academy & Campus X
Telerik Academy & Campus X
Yonatan Pinto
Business Development & Communications Director
Baker McKenzie
Baker McKenzie
Some of Our Partner Banks
