Visa: Winner Of 2010 Information on Demand Innovation Award

Visa Inc., the global payments technology company, and IBM today announced that Visa is the winner of IBM’s annual Information on Demand 2010 Innovation Award.

This is in recognition of Visa’s leadership in using cutting-edge information technology and real-time data analytics to drive growth, prevent fraud, and improve the consumer payment experience.

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With more than 1.8 billion Visa cards accepted at millions of retailers and ATMs around the globe, Visa’s global network, VisaNet, processes a growing number of increasingly complex electronic payments.

Visa’s ability to not only manage but master information in real-time, providing its clients and Visa cardholders with a growing number of information-based services, sets the company apart as a leading innovator in payments today.

“Few people recognize the critical role VisaNet plays in not only transaction processing, but delivering business intelligence and real-time information that empowers financial institutions, retailers, and Visa account holders,” said Mike Dreyer, Chief Information Officer, Visa, Inc. “Only because Visa is able to touch each transaction generated from our products can we deliver this level of innovation that fuels commerce globally and expands the utility and reach of digital currency worldwide.

Dreyer was in attendance at the event and spoke during this morning’s keynote session in an interview conducted by IBM Software VP, Robert Leblanc, about Visa’s progress with information analytics.

Visa was recognized by IBM for achievements to date in information management and a visionary plan to further transform Visa’s business. By harnessing and analyzing the data behind each transaction, Visa is adding value to the traditional payment transaction and providing its clients with improved business intelligence.

VisaNet, the world’s largest retail electronic payments network processes more than 100 billion transactions each year representing more than $4.8 trillion in value. Its centralized processing architecture enables Visa to analyze information in real-time and is a catalyst for innovations. Visa information-based services are among the most advanced in the payments industry, they include:

• Real-Time Fraud Monitoring: Visa’s Advanced Authorization risk scores are based on a global view of fraud and spending patterns across the entire Visa network. Because VisaNet processes more electronic payments globally than other networks, Visa has unique capabilities to identify fraud on individual accounts and coordinated attacks on multiple accounts across the system, enabling an issuer to potentially stop fraud at the check-out, before it occurs.
• Transaction Alerts: Visa transaction alerts are sent on behalf of financial institutions directly from VisaNet, Visa’s global processing network, typically within seconds of a transaction occurring. Alerts are triggered when the transaction meets certain criteria the account holder has selected and are delivered directly to the account holder via email or SMS text message. Visa’s transaction alerts let consumers monitor their accounts for unusual activity and take immediate action if they believe a potentially fraudulent transaction is taking place.
• Offers: Visa account holders are able to receive offers from merchants directly to their mobile phone. Offers range from discounts and loyalty points that can be redeemed at the point of sale. For consumers and merchants alike, this service ensures the most relevant offers are sent in a timely manner, helping increase merchant traffic, loyalty and customer satisfaction. Merchants benefit from better targeting and more efficient marketing spend and cardholders get more of the offers they want.

Visa is currently working with IBM as part of a global initiative to continue Visa’s heritage of analyzing payment system data to deliver ever-greater value to customers and cardholders. The initiative is designed to further enhance Visa’s ability to deliver real-time business intelligence to global clients and account holders, and will help ensure Visa’s information-based services remain a key competitive differentiator.

IBM’s Innovation Awards are given out annually at IBM’s Information on Demand Conference. Winners are selected among thousands of clients that are using IBM technologies to transform their business.

Information on Demand 2010, Opening Session Keynote: Gain Insight, Optimize Results

At this morning’s opening keynote session of the IBM Information on Agenda 2010 event, Robert Leblanc immediately got down to the business at hand: Telling organizations everywhere the basic rules of the road on how to work towards establishing their own effective Information Agenda.

With Blue Man Group-ish performance troup Cobu first setting the agenda for the conference with a beat all its own, Leblanc answered in turn and explained the conference theme: “Gain Insight, Optimize Results.”

Robert Leblanc, IBM VP Middleware for IBM Software, expounds on the opportunities of an information agenda at Information on Demand 2010 in Las Vegas, Nevada.

 

Leblanc is the Senior Vice President, Middleware Software, for the IBM Software business, and opened his comments by citing from the IBM 2010 Global CEO Study, which had three key findings in terms of what CEOs are looking for these days: 1) Embody creative leadership; 2) Reinvent customer relationships; and 3) Build operating dexterity.

Leblanc posed a few key questions to set the stage: How do I share information in more of a two-way manner with my clients?  How can I modify my products and services to better serve clients? How can I draw insight from the organization that is specialized to the client set I’m going after?

In other words, information management professionals, CEOs need your help!

A quick sound byte, related Leblanc: There will be 44X as much data and content over the coming decade, from 800K petabytes in 2009, to 35 zettabytes in 2020.

Yet people are starved for the right info and insight.  More sound bytes:

• 1 in 3 make critical decisions without the information they need.
• 1 in 2 don’t have access to the information they need to do their jobs.

Clearly, there’s a gap between information and outcomes.

That’s partially due to the Information Explosion, wherein organizations haven’t aligned their information needs with their business processes, or determined how to make the right information available when and wherever it’s needed throughout the organization.

In short, how to get to one version of the truth.

After being joined by customers CenterPoint Energy and Visa, who explained how their own organizations are using an IBM Information Agenda to get the right information to the right people when and wherever they need it, Leblanc summarized the roadmap for establishing your own Information Agenda.

First, he said, you need to plan an information agenda that aligns with your business decisions.  Second, you need to master your information to ensure it is accurate, relevant, and governed (and with a nod to increasing governance and regulatory requirements around the globe).

And finally, you must work to apply business analytics to anticipate and shape business outcomes, because increasingly, information is going to come from everywhere, requiring a response characteristic of radical flexibility and extreme scalability.

Leblanc summarized that no matter where in the organization you sit — C-Suite, Business Analystcs, Executive — you can take the lead on mapping out and setting your own information agenda.