Role: Lead negotiator for Visa working with regulators in the Manoa market

Situation:

Visa is looking to introduce a new business-to-business (B2B) payment network connection product (called “VSB— Visa Solutions for Business”) to the Manoan market. Unlike credit and debit, where the Visa network is most prominently known for consumer and business payments, this is a pretty new concept, regulators have understood Visa products and services in the past.

 You understand the value proposition on offer because the existing cross-border payments experience for large value business-to-business payments is very painful.  This has been especially highlighted during the pandemic. You want to showcase why this is important for Manoa, which is a trading nation with abundant linkages with major trading partners where improving those payment flows is critical VSB is a ready-made solution to ease user experience and modernize routine payments.

 You know this could move very slowly based on your previous experiences in Manoa dealing with regulators. Four years ago, when Visa initially tried to bring mobile payments to Manoa, like orangePay and other digital wallets, you talked to the same regulators and went through a long process, but at the end of the day, they allowed Visa to launch.

 This product has launched already in big markets in the region, as well as smaller ones, but has not been widely adopted by many banks yet.  Basically, we’re at the early stages of this product going to market, so in terms of the number of banks and the transaction volumes, it is actually not that big…yet. Still, you can highlight that dozens of markets around the world have already approved or showed no objections to this product (and in a small number of cases we applied for a license and got approved). For banks that want to join, it actually takes them maybe 6 to 12 months to do the implementation, so there is like a ramp-up period before they can put live transactions onto the network. You think it's going to grow pretty soon, especially given pandemic-induced demand.

In many other markets, Visa just needs to give an overall brief to the regulators, and in most cases, because this kind of product exists outside of the regulatory framework of those markets, they usually just would express no objection, and then we could just launch the market. But Manoa is a little bit different: they ask unusually detailed questions, sometimes requesting confidential or sensitive info. 

You’ve worked with Visa for a number of years now, and while this deal is not your first interaction with Manoan regulators, it is your first as lead negotiator, rather than in a supporting capacity, and you want it to go well. Doing well on this could serve as a great step in your career progression, and your goal to leading negotiations in larger markets.