Startups compete to transform the future of commerce with Visa

More than 700 fintech applicants entered the Visa Everywhere Initiative in Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa (CEMEA) with innovative payment and commerce solutions to solve the payment challenges of tomorrow. Meet our five CEMEA finalists in this video, and learn more about how their solutions contribute to solving the payment challenges of tomorrow.

The competition is tailored to startups and fintechs with great products already in market and gaining traction - and looking for an extra push from a global, trusted brand like Visa to gain scale.

The Visa Everywhere Initiative helps those innovators in two ways: as a program, it plugs them into the network of startups that our product teams from all over the world access when searching for solutions; and as a competition, it gives them a forum in which to make a pitch to a panel of payments experts, win prizes and gain wider attention.

The CEMEA region was the leading contributor to this year’s global competition, with 35% of applications coming from the CEMEA countries, including many entrants from Sub-Saharan Africa. Out of 1,300 applications worldwide this year, around 800 featured small-business recovery as one of their core pillars.

To see the full Visa Everywhere Initiative CEMEA finale, click here.