Individuals, businesses, and economies thrive when trust in institutions is high and barriers to progress are low. As a global network with more than six decades of experience building inclusive digital ecosystems, Visa knows that creating the conditions for sustainable growth at scale is a shared responsibility of the public and private sectors. This is why we are launching the Visa Economic Empowerment Institute - a new network for the exchange of ideas on payments and public policy. 

Economic empowerment is about removing the structural barriers and systemic biases that degrade trust and entrench inequality. It is about enabling individuals and businesses to grasp opportunities. Just as Visa built a global network for electronic value exchange, the Visa Economic Empowerment Institute (VEEI) will provide a platform for the international exchange of policy ideas on Fostering Digital Equity and Inclusion, Unlocking Growth through Trade, and Imagining an Open Future for Payments. Governments, civil society, and private sector leaders are invited to partner with us to make the digital transformation of commerce a force for empowerment for everyone, everywhere.

Visa is guided by our mission to connect the world to enable individuals, businesses, and economies to thrive. When economies are inclusive and equitable, they uplift everyone, everywhere. This means that the benefits of digital payments and technology can go to all.

As of 2017, about 1.7 billion people lacked access to formal financial services, according to the World Bank’s Global Findex database. In 2015, Visa made a sustained commitment to reach the financially underserved, reaching our goal of connecting 500 million previously unbanked people to digital payment accounts by 2020. Since then, the proportion of people able to receive digital payments has increased significantly, largely due to innovation. But we know that this is not enough.

Expanding financial services to low-income households and small businesses can help create a more inclusive society. Foundational questions remain regarding how to best use digital payments and connectivity to create sustainable value. VEEI research will provide guidance to help economically empower everyone, everywhere.

Across the world, barriers to economic empowerment persist. Estimates show that in the United States alone, the racial wealth gap’s dampening effect on consumption and investment will cost the US economy between $1 trillion and $1.5 trillion between 2019 and 2028.¹ Similar patterns exist in countries across the globe, with particular groups prevented – explicitly or implicitly – from realizing their economic potential. The losses to an economy from the underrepresentation of women have been estimated to range from 10 percent of GDP in advanced economies to more than 30 percent in South Asia and in the Middle East and North Africa.² Significant barriers persist for people with disabilities as well as neurodiverse populations. Conversely, the gains from economic empowerment are substantial.

Digital equity and inclusion rests on two overarching foundations: enablement and the ecosystem. Enablement entails empowering an individual by eliminating barriers to knowledge and skills, access and opportunity. Ecosystems refer to the physical infrastructure, human networks, governance frameworks, and ownership structures that interact powerfully in today’s hyper-connected digital world. VEEI researchers will examine various elements of enablement and ecosystems and provide recommendations to help encourage movement towards digital equity and inclusion.

One important element is the way in which individuals are enabled by the societies in which they live. Visa believes in the importance of a diverse and inclusive economy and a diverse and inclusive workforce. For its part, Visa has established a $10 million Black Scholars and Jobs Program for college-bound Black and African American students, recognizing the multilayered barriers to economic empowerment. One of the key missions of the VEEI will be to study the impact of fully including diverse groups in the economy across the world.

Another key element for VEEI research is the digital trade environment. Opportunities abound for small businesses to partake in global value chains in ways that could not be imagined just five years ago. Small businesses have traditionally had greater difficulty accessing the necessary capital and digital tools and skills to achieve success in the ecommerce space. This is even more evident when those small businesses are led by women or other underserved populations. The path to building back better includes provisions for small businesses to be able to access capital and knowledge in order to recover and thrive.

It is no coincidence that the establishment of the VEEI was announced jointly with Visa’s initiative to support and digitally enable struggling small businesses globally. With the world experiencing several years’ worth of ecommerce growth in just a matter of weeks, small businesses, particularly, needed rapid support in accepting digital payments. Following the Visa Foundation’s $200 million commitment to support small and micro businesses, with a focus on women’s economic advancement, Visa pledged to digitally enable 50 million small and micro businesses to help communities around the world recover.

Small businesses will benefit the most from an enabling ecosystem for business, particularly one that encourages access to international markets. Even as access to digital trade has become increasingly important, we are witnessing a trend away from trade openness. Here, policymakers have a clear choice in paths – one towards a better and more robust digital trade ecosystem, or one that will cut off opportunities for their citizens and entrepreneurs to benefit from expanded access to the global marketplace.

VEEI research in this area aims to ensure that all businesses and individuals who have the potential to realize great opportunities to scale and grow are enabled to do so. The VEEI will provide analysis on current global trends with an eye towards fostering an open and resilient trade ecosystem that encourages innovation and inclusion. Researchers will examine ways to modernize the international trading system to keep up with trends in digital trade and encourage the free flow of data. We will assess the impact of trade policies on particular groups, and investigate how economically empowering those groups can have positive effects on private sector development in their countries.

Payments innovation can be a catalyst for economic growth. VEEI fellows will offer policy strategies for accelerating the diffusion of new technologies to small businesses, consumers, and governments across the world. Visa has been innovating payments for over 60 years. Today, our innovations allow for a network of networks that connects consumers and businesses across the world. Our innovations allow for mobile money users to have access to cross-border e-commerce capabilities like any card holder. They can facilitate the quick and safe disbursement of emergency funds to a largely unbanked population via tokenized credentials connected to virtual prepaid cards. And innovations such as tokenization offer peace of mind by keeping fraud down while allowing for higher authorization rates, which are key for small businesses. VEEI’s research will describe the payments landscape and the trajectory of innovation, highlight the profound changes introduced by the COVID-19 pandemic and offer policy suggestions for recovery, and set forth areas the VEEI plans to explore in more detail with policymakers.