Above: John Outridge, CEO TTIFC.

Visa (NYSE: V) and Trinidad and Tobago International Financial Centre (TTIFC) are collaborating to drive financial inclusion in Trinidad and Tobago.

The TTIFC, which the Ministry of Finance has tasked to increase the use of cashless technology in society, has been collaborating with Visa to enable Trinidad and Tobago’s government to accept digital payments, develop the infrastructure for local FinTech providers to build and rapidly scale solutions, and create the conditions to position Trinidad and Tobago as a regional FinTech Hub.

This endeavor seeks to bring the significant benefits of a truly inclusive and prosperous digital economy to Trinidad and Tobago’s consumers, businesses, and the public sector.

As part of the strategy, Visa, a world leader in digital payments, is working alongside TTIFC as well as partners from the Banking and FinTech sectors to provide access to financial tools whilst encouraging and accelerating the adoption of digital payments across the public sector with a roadmap focused on the following main action areas:

• Leveraging Visa’s CyberSource Payments Platform to securely accept and scale digital payments by enabling local FinTech, financial institutions, and merchants to efficiently innovate on a foundation that provides API-based capabilities, such as interoperable tokenization, 3D Secure 2.0, and funds disbursement.
• Contributing to developing and implementing a technology-enabled FinTech innovation workspace – the TTIFC’s FinTech Innovation Hub will provide a collaborative venue for stakeholders, key digital finance players, and FinTech to exchange innovative ideas, develop market-relevant solutions and showcase existing technologies that can solve industry-wide issues.

Jorge Salum, Visa Senior Business Development leader, Caribbean

“Accelerating the digital transformation of payments has never been more important to uplift our economies and spur economic and social growth. We are thrilled to partner with TTIFC to help them make a lasting impact in facilitating an interconnected, cashless society that will position Trinidad and Tobago at the heart of a thriving and inclusive digital finance revolution,” said Jorge Salum, Visa Senior Business Development leader for the Caribbean.

“As a world leader in digital payments, we are uniquely positioned to digitally empower a massive number of people and businesses in the country. We are committed to being the best partner in helping TTIFC quickly reach its digitalisation objectives and supporting Trinidad and Tobago in becoming a fintech-enabled Hub.”

“In a world where cashless payments are rapidly becoming the norm, we are very pleased to count on Visa’s support, scale and network reach to help us achieve our vision of moving further into a cashless future,” said TTIFC CEO John Outridge.

“As we intensively work to accelerate the digitalisation of payments across the government, we are confident that with our ecosystem of partners such as Visa, with their know-how, capabilities and proven experience working with governments worldwide to transition from cash to digital transactions, we will be able to effectively reach our target goals and lay the foundation for a world-class digital finance platform to support and enable the FinTech sector.”

Visa is already making strides in shaping the government of Trinidad and Tobago’s digital finance agenda and expanding cashless payment acceptance for its citizens. The company’s Cybersource technology is already incorporated into the digital payments omnichannel payment network recently launched by the Housing Development Corporation (HDC), the government’s first corporation to offer cashless payment options to customers. The Cybersource platform is the primary acceptance infrastructure that is enabling an estimated 20,000 HDC customers to safely and securely make payments related to their unit rentals.

Driving a fintech & digital ecosystem

Visa’s collaboration with the TTIFC is part of a broader effort to drive a cashless society in Trinidad & Tobago. Visa has been proactively enabling the development of the local FinTech ecosystem. For instance, Visa was the first international member to join The FinTech Association of Trinidad and Tobago (FinTech TT) in 2021 and lead its infrastructure and development working group. Additionally, the company is working with Trinidadian startups, such as AnglPay, Drop and Weeve, to enable digital commerce locally and throughout the Caribbean and ensure that digital payments are fast, reliable, and secure for citizens and businesses of all sizes.

Visa, Infolink and most of Trinidad and Tobago’s leading financial institutions recently completed the migration of their debit cards to the first dual-branded Visa-LINX debit contactless chip card. This is a significant milestone in modernising the country’s payments ecosystem. It establishes the foundation to digitalise payments, deploy new technologies and enable fintech and other stakeholders to grow their businesses.