How will the future of digital commerce look? There are few companies that can answer this question better than Visa and American Express that are in the forefront of digital payment evolution. John Partridge, President of Visa, Inc., and Dan Schulman, Group President, Enterprise Growth at American Express, talk with John Battelle at the 2011 Web 2.0 Summit, and discuss the exciting opportunities and challenges ahead in the area of digital commerce.
As online retail finds adoption across emerging markets, online transactions continue to increase, and produce the 16% of Visa’s 3.5 trillion transactions worldwide that are already made online. And American Express saw close to 100 billion transactions made online last year. As this new phenomenon evolves, John and Dan outline the innovative new platforms, products and services that will redefine the way payments are made in future.
Virtual wallets provide a unique opportunity to Visa and American Express, as the mode of payment in emerging markets will leapfrog from cash to digital, without the transition to checks and plastic cards in its evolution. John shares Visa’s plans in this area and explains how partnership with other major players like MasterCard and PayPal is crucial to providing a comprehensive digital wallet platform to customers.
As they discuss the growth plans for Visa and American Express, John and Dan explain how some recent acquisitions have helped their companies in developing several compelling service offerings. The conversation also focuses on the importance of data in e-commerce, and explores how consumer data enables micro-segmentation and better targeting of potential customers.
John Partridge is the president of Visa Inc. Prior to being named president, Partridge served as chief operating officer and led efforts to transform Visa from a membership association owned by financial institutions into a global, publicly traded company. Previously, Partridge served as the first president and chief executive officer of Inovant — the company that owns and operates VisaNet, Visa’s electronic payment processing service. Before joining Visa, Partridge served as the senior vice president of program management and chief information officer for UNUM Corporation, a disability insurance company in Portland, Maine. Prior to joining UNUM, Partridge managed all systems, operations and consumer banking for Banco de Credito del Peru in Lima. His earlier career included 10 years with Wells Fargo Bank. Partridge has a B.S. in economics from the University of California, Berkeley.
Dan Schulman is group president, Enterprise Growth at American Express. Prior to joining American Express, Dan was the CEO of Virgin Mobile USA, which he founded in September 2001. Previously, Dan served as the chief executive officer of priceline.com. Dan was recently named a winner of the New Jersey Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year award, saluting executives’ efforts in business excellence and community improvement, and was selected by Fierce Wireless as one of the Top 25 most powerful people in the global wireless industry. He currently serves on the board of governors of Rutgers University. He is a member of the board of directors of Symantec and Flextronics. Dan earned his Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Middlebury College and a Masters in Business Administration from New York University, majoring in Finance.
Resources
This free podcast is from our Web 2.0 Conference series.
For The Conversations Network:
Photo: Dan Schulman, LinkedIn Profile; and John Partridge, http://daily.ctia.org
