It is known that you have joined VISA since 2018. Now you are Regional Manager for the Caucasus. Could you please mention the main priorities for VISA’s business development strategy in this region?

VISA is a world’s leader in digital payment, and our mission is very simple – it’s to be the most reliable, the most innovative and the most secure payments network, which connects businesses, the economy and individuals and helps them have new achievements. Therefore, this is what we do in all more than 200 countries, and we bring our technologies as an innovation – basically, it’s the development of cashless economy, it’s the development of digitization and we work together with government, financial institutions in order to ensure this agenda. We bring our capabilities to ensure that we have the acceptance network where people can pay: we have customers who have different ways of payment, whether it’s a debit card, credit card or digital card, mobile devices or other technologies. We do everything possible to bring our expertise and to enhance this very important journey towards the digital economy and the digital society.

As we know, VISA is a devoted supporter of Georgian business. We would like to know what kind of support does Visa provide for the small and medium-sized enterprises in Armenia?

VISA is a huge supporter for SMEs, and it is one of our main strategic directions to support them, because we really see that they are the backbone of every economy, they create jobs, they contribute to the development of the economy, and we have a lot of initiatives and partnership with more than 100 fintechs in the region. We are open to any partnership. We have a very interesting initiative called “Visa Everywhere Initiative (VEI)”. It’s a competition for fintech startups, and I am very proud to say that last year this competition in Central Europe, Middle East and Africa (CEMEA) region was won by Georgian startup “Payze”. In this regard Armenia is very strong: there are a lot of companies that drive the business and work across borders. We will be very happy to see them in our initiatives as well. Also we have Visa Fast Track program: we motivate fintechs ensuring that we open an opportunity for them to use our experience, technologies and teach them the tools they need to develop their businesses.

In recent years, financial technologies are developing rapidly, as a result, the classic payment and settlement operations are being transformed. Could you please list the innovative solutions that VISA has implemented in the region, particularly in Armenia?

We celebrate the 20th anniversary of our presence in Armenia. Looking back to what we have accomplished, I can say that I am only proud of it: in 2014, first contactless transactions were made and earlier this year the Ecopay technology was launched. So, this whole journey was very exciting and as a global payment leader, VISA brings new technologies to the country. Օne of the recent innovations is ApplePay which enables you to pay just taping your Apple device to POS terminal. We really see that in the future we will continue this important contribution that we do for Armenia in terms of bringing our technology, sharing our expertise with all the parties involved in this ecosystem in order to help the economy strive.

The COVID19 changed the business management processes and socio-economic behavior of people. What were the main challenges for VISA during the active period of COVID-19 and post-pandemic period?

I think the challenge was the unknown portion in all situations happening: we just didn’t know what to expect, because one day everything was closed and every individual was impacted. SMEs were the most impacted segment of the situation, and we really did our best to support the most vulnerable segments during the pandemic: together with several banks, we created packages for small and medium business in Georgia to help them move their businesses online. However, at the same time COVID-19 accelerated the digital transformation, boosting it, and we saw that digitization, which was a very fancy word, became real.

We served as the strong supporter for our partners to ensure that they have all capabilities to move through this quite challenging times, and we created solutions that ensure the transactions with safety  and security, because on the one hand technologies are developing and on the other we, as a global leader in payments, need to ensure that fraud is not increasing and the customers are protected. We really saw how many opportunities COVID-19 created, you just moved from your comfort zone. And the most important thing here was that a lot of companies managed to adapt, so the ability to adapt seems to be a very important thing in this regard.

Actually VISA cooperates with Armenian commercial banks and payment organizations for many years. However, it is interesting to know, what are the advantages and difficulties of working in the Armenian business environment?

I am almost 4 years in the company, and it’s a pleasure to work in Armenia having partners who are just looking towards innovations. They are very closely cooperating with us, and we are together searching new opportunities to ensure the demands coming from the customers.

The protection of online shopping is VISA’s top priority, and for that purpose in 2020 VISA introduced updated Visa Secure technology. Could you please tell us how it works and do you have statistics, which proves the positive impact of that technology on payment transactions?

Our top priority is digitization and ensuring a developed cashless economy. We do it through different strategic pillars. One of them is developing e-commerce and solutions that protect our customers in the e-commerce. The solution you are mentioning is an additional tool to protect online purchases. I would outline four differentiators that we bring in order to ensure that everything that is connected with global payment system is safe – it’s our brand, it’s the trust that people are showing and expressing towards VISA, it’s our innovations, capabilities and it’s the success that we are bringing with us in terms of development of cashless economy.

VISA is actively involved in different promo campaigns. Could you highlight the business spheres where these promotions work well and due to it VISA cardholders make a lot of deals?

It’s very obvious: the segments which the customers are using frequently, it may be retail stores, groceries, transport etc. The segments that are most impacted by the promo campaigns we do and which contribute to the cashless economy is everyday spent, because when people try to use their cards frequently it becomes a habit. First of all, we target the everyday’s spent, but at the same time we work as a team on enhancement of our products to create more and more benefits for the customers to be using their payment instruments. In this regard, we are strengthening our value proposition, and we have just launched the “The world of privileges” program in Armenia.

The last question is about VISA’s future activities. Central Bank of Armenia aims to digitize the financial ecosystem. It requires time and investment. What kind of plans do you have for supporting digitization in our country? Is Georgian experience suitable for us?

What we do in Georgia may work in Armenia. It depends on the situation and the specific period we are doing that, and it depends on the vision of the government. In Armenia, we really appreciate the efforts of the government aimed at promoting cashless transactions. There is no doubt that the cashless economy and ongoing reforms bring transparency, security and speed in payments, and the customers are satisfied with the services that we bring additionally. So, in this regard we are very actively working with all participants of the ecosystem by continuing to adapt, accelerating our technologies and developing the infrastructure, where the customers can perform the payments. It is very important that the government leads and promotes cashless transactions.