Visa Makes Strategic Investment In YellowPepper - Quick Facts

(RTTNews) - Visa Inc. (V) said it has made a strategic investment in YellowPepper, a mobile payments provider in Latin America, to help accelerate adoption of mobile payments and tokenization in Latin America and the Caribbean.

The strategic investment, the first of its kind for Visa in the region. Visa and YellowPepper initially established a multi-year partnership in 2017.

Visa noted that preliminary efforts of this investment will focus on growing opportunities for tokenized payments, increasing access to Visa APIs, and expanding the usage of push payments via Visa Direct.

As a certified Visa Token Service Provider, YellowPepper offers Visa's digital payment token services, ensuring that regardless of form factor, nearly any Internet-connected device can become a more secure place for commerce.

Visa said its investment in YellowPepper is part of a global strategy to open up the Visa ecosystem and support a broad range of new partners who are helping to redefine and enhance the purchase experience for millions of consumers globally.

Previously, Visa has made investments in Chain, Klarna, Marqeta, solarisBank, Square and Stripe, among others.

Separately, Miami-based YellowPepper announced the close of its $12.5 million Series D financing, with participation from Visa and current investors.

The company said it will use the funding to accelerate the momentum of its digital finance platform, which already powers 480 million digital transactions annually.

With more than 60 clients in six countries, YellowPepper is a financial services partner to Latin American institutions.

YellowPepper noted that Latin America has the fastest rate of smartphone adoption in the world, with total adoption expected to reach 60 percent of mobile phone users by 2020, up from 38 percent in 2016.