Visa launches AI consulting practice

Payments giant Visa this week announced the formal launch of a global artificial intelligence (AI) advisory practice.

Visa’s AI consulting launch arrives shortly after rival MasterCard unveiled its own AI practice.

The new AI offering will be situated in the company’s payments consulting division Visa Consulting & Analytics (VCA) – which has offerings in strategy, implementation, digital, portfolio optimization, and risk. VCA has a team of over 1,000 consultants, data scientists and product experts in 75 offices on six continents.

Visa said the AI consulting offering draws on three decades of experience using AI to provide secure transactions. The San Francisco-based firm has in the last 10 years invested over $3 billion in AI and data infrastructure to help prevent fraud and breaches.

VCA’s team has already carried out hundreds of AI engagements in the past year, Visa said in a press release.

“Visa doesn’t just use AI to help improve payment experiences – our Advisory business is also harnessing it to empower our clients to grow and redefine how they serve their own customers through acquisition, engagement, retention, and risk management,” said Carl Rutstein, global head of advisory services, Visa.

The AI practice will offer a range of services from strategy and capability assessment to model design and implementation.

“VCA has developed a number of proprietary AI/ML models to help us grow by serving our customers better. Their AI/ML experts coupled with both our data and VisaNet data provide us with a level of insight that is central to our growth strategy,” said a senior vice president of payments at a top 10 bank in the US.

Visa and Mastercard also previously opened consulting practices in cryptocurrency.