Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd., known as ANZ, is expanding its collaboration with Visa Inc. to offer Visa-branded debit cards to its customers in additional countries in the Asia/Pacific region starting this year, the card company announced in a recent statement. Visa and ANZ first begin working together to offer cards in Australia and New Zealand in 2005.
“Apart from the two, ANZ currently issues Visa debit cards in Vietnam and Laos,” a spokesperson for the Australia-based bank tells PaymentsSource. “In addition, ANZ issues Visa credit cards in Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, Vietnam and Cambodia.”
According to the statement, ANZ will introduce Visa debit cards progressively in Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Cambodia, Cook Island, East Timor, Fiji, Kiribati, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and Tonga. In addition, ANZ soon will begin to issue Visa-branded credit cards in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore as it completes the acquisition of Royal Bank of Scotland assets in those markets, the spokesperson says.
ANZ issues approximately 350,000 Visa credit and 50,000 Visa debit cards in the Asia/Pacific region, according to the spokesperson.
