Visa Makes Alliances to Push Its Brand on the Net

Hoping to make its brand name as ubiquitous in cyberspace as on terra firma, Visa International has begun aligning itself with Internet companies.

This month Visa formed a partnership with Pointcast Inc., an Internet- based information service, to encourage on-line shopping and promote secure methods of electronic commerce.

Visa already had a similar relationship with Yahoo, the popular Internet search engine, and is developing other alliances.

"We are interested in partnering," said Sarah Perry, senior vice president of Visa's strategic business development. "We think it is a great way to work in the Web environment."

By establishing ties to frequently visited sites on the Internet, Visa can make applying for credit cards as easy as clicking on an icon. Just as in the physical world, advertising in the virtual world relies on frequent exposure to a punchy message.

In some circumstances, Visa is taking advantage of "push" technology, which delivers news or product offers without their having been explicitly requested at the desktop. America Online subscribers, for example, are shown offers for the cobranded Visa/America Online platinum card when they log on. They must click the ad away-or apply for the card-to continue using the service.

Pointcast, which today provides a news service at no charge, "pushes" articles that users might be interested in, based on preselected preferences.

In 1998 Pointcast will launch a fee-based service called Companies Premier. Under the deal with the San Francisco-based card association, Visa will be the preferred-though not the only accepted-credit card of Pointcast, and Visa's logo will be displayed prominently on the Web site.

"It is a way of suggesting to people to use their Visa card" to pay for the fee-based news service, said Pointcast spokeswoman Wendy McCarthy.

Eventually, Pointcast customers will get discounts for using Visa cards on the site, but the companies would not elaborate on how such benefits could be earned or applied.

According to a survey conducted for Pointcast, more than one million people-mostly business professionals-use its service, and 58% of them have used a credit or debit card to make a purchase on the Internet.

In July, Visa began working with Yahoo, with which it also has "preferred brand" status. Yahoo's home page includes several links to Visa's shopping guide, which lists hundreds of merchants with outposts on the Internet. Not all these merchants sell their goods on-line, however.

Visa and Yahoo are planning to market a cobranded card to Internet users. The companies are also working together to promote the Secure Electronic Transactions standard for Internet card payments.

"These alliances are aimed at promoting the Visa brand in Internet-based services and to provide education to consumers about on-line shopping," Ms. Perry said.

Analysts see these partnerships as a way for Visa to associate its brand with leading Internet companies and to court upscale customers.

"Visa is seeking ways to learn from some of the experts on the Internet," said Karen Epper Hoffman, until recently an electronic commerce analyst at Forrester Research of Cambridge, Mass. "They can't just stick to their knitting and work with the banks, because they aren't going to learn (about the Internet) from the banks."

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