Nationwide will continue to roll out Visa debit and credit cards for its 16 million customers across the UK and Ireland to continue its 35-year partnership.
With Nationwide also retaining Visa as its leading scheme provider, the new agreement with the payment giant intends to help drive growth for the bank’s current accounts and credit card issuing services for additional value.
Tom Riley, Director of Retail Products at Nationwide, said: “Expanding our partnership with Visa is an important move, as it means we can continue to provide new innovative products and services to our current and future members.
“We’re excited to work together to deliver new ways to pay and protect our members’ money, so they continue to actively choose Nationwide.”
For the first time in the lengthy partnership’s history, Visa will provide Nationwide with services covering both card and account-to-account (A2A) payment types, with the latter surging in interest over recent years amongst businesses and consumers.
The global payments company asserted that there is a need to reflect the “growing importance of consistent user experiences and fraud prevention” across a variety of alternative payment methods.
Central to this will be the roll out of a series of joint programmes between Nationwide and Visa, focusing on delivering greater value to cardholders when it comes to making credit or debit card transactions.
Mandy Lamb, Managing Director UK & Ireland at Visa, stated: “We’re proud to build on our long-standing relationship with Nationwide to deliver debit and credit solutions that its members will love.
“Our ambition is to ensure Nationwide members can pay and be paid with ease, while offering the security needed to pay with peace of mind. At Visa we have invested £8bn in technology over the past five years, including to reduce fraud, and we look forward to continuing to expand our capabilities to keep customers safe.”
As previously mentioned, A2A payments are becoming one of the most in-demand payment methods amongst consumers and businesses alike, with Open Banking-powered options like Pay by Bank offering a more seamless and personalised approach to making transactions.
However, evident within Nationwide’s Visa extension, debit and credit cards continue to dominate as the preferred payment method, particularly amongst UK consumers.
UK Financerecently revealed that UK consumers spent over £1trn via debit and credit cards last year as they continue to be the most reliable mode of payment, offering more security and ease-of-mind amongst a plethora of various demographics.
