New ways to pay: Bots, tattoos and augmented reality

Visa has announced the winners of The Everywhere Initiative. The competition, which asked start-ups to use Visa APIs to bring new ideas to payments, has been held for the first time in New Zealand and Australia.

“Visa believes innovation can come from anywhere and that some of tomorrow’s payment experiences may come from co-creation between fintech and established players,” said Marty Kerr, Country Manager for Visa in New Zealand & South Pacific.

“We are thrilled there is a strong representation of New Zealand finalists with top quality ideas, such as making it easier for people to manage their money and pay bills to developing new ways for consumers with disabilities to make payments.”

At the public pitch event last night in Sydney, start-ups took home awards in the following categories:

• The Everywhere API Consumer Challenge: this challenge asked start-ups to use Visa API to improve the experience or solve a problem faced by consumers when they make or receive payments. 
  • Winner: Jude (New Zealand). Jude is a bot that helps consumers manage their money and pay bills on time. 
• The Everywhere API Commercial Challenge: use Visa APIs to address a problem experienced by businesses when they make or receive payments
  • Winner: Proximiti (Australia). Proximiti offers a location services and data analytics platform that adds real-world context to digital interactions.
• The Everyone, Everywhere Challenge: develop a solution that makes payments frictionless for people with disabilities, expanding access to Visa’s payments to everyone, everywhere
  • Winner: Rush Digital (New Zealand). Rush Digital creates experiences that transcend virtual technology into the real world. For example, they could develop platforms that could process payments for disabled consumers, through solutions like temporary tattoos or e-Braille
• People’s Choice Award: this award was voted on by the audience at the pitch event, both in the room and via webcast.
  • Winner: Persollo (Australia). Persollo is a one-step checkout solution for brands and retailers and allows sellers to easily add product to platform, generate a payment link and share for easy payment
• Overall Winner of The Everywhere Initiative: Top honours went to Thought-Wired, from New Zealand, who was awarded the overall prize of AUD$50,000 and the chance to pilot their winning idea with Visa. Thought-Wired makes nous, a thought-controlled communication solution for people who cannot move or talk because of profound disabilities. Their idea was about incorporating payment capability into the nous device, to make it easier for consumers with disabilities to access electronic payments. 

“I’d like to congratulate all the Kiwi winners and finalists of The Everywhere Initiative, and thank all those who entered. Once again the New Zealand developer and start up community has punched well above its weight in terms of leading in innovation. We’re delighted to support some of New Zealand’s most innovative companies to succeed with concepts which embrace the future of payments,” said Mr Kerr.

This was the first time Visa ran The Everywhere Initiative in Australia and New Zealand, having held previous competitions in the United States and China. Local partners included Australian co-working space Tank Stream Labs and New Zealand business growth hub The Icehouse.

“As Visa transforms into an open commerce platform, the Everywhere Initiative is one way that we’re learning to speak the same language as start-ups,” said Shiv Singh, Senior Vice President Global Head of Digital and Marketing Transformation at Visa’s headquarters in the United States.

“We continue to work with a number of start-ups who took part in the US and China competitions. I’m excited for the finalists from Australia and New Zealand to join our growing network of Everywhere Initiative alumni from around the world and help shape the future of commerce.”