Visa International, the world`s largest consumer payment system, announced today that it will form part of the NetMauritius.com consortium. The other members of the consortium are the State Bank of Mauritius, Mauritius Telecom, Air Mauritius, the Mauritius State Investment Corporation, Nedbank Africa Ltd and Andersen Consulting. The consortium will put in place a Business to Business e-commerce platform for the Indian ocean region and plans to offer services to other e-commerce businesses
This venture has received endorsement from the Mauritian government. The Mauritius initiative will make it easy for companies wishing to take advantage of the island`s sophisticated e-commerce strategies, its tax neutral status, its strategic location and its extensive freeport facilities.
The Mauritian economy is one of the most open economies in the world and over the past 10 years the economy has grown at an average of approximately 5% annually. This compares with the OECD average for the comparable period of approximately 2.5% annually. Mr Navinchandra Ramgoolam, Prime Minister of Mauritius said, "by making NetMauritius.com part of the Mauritian economic agenda, we will provide another means by which the Mauritius economy will continue to grow."
Visa International regards Mauritius as a hub for business and tourism in the Indian Ocean. "It is a thriving country which only seems to go from strength to strength, so understandably we were proud to be invited to take part in this joint venture. "This is particularly exciting for us because it is the first joint venture Visa has entered into with the State Bank of Mauritius and Nedbank, both Visa member financial institutions, outside of our customary Visa licensing agreement", said Vic Duys, General Manager at Visa for sub-Saharan Africa.
"We believe the role that Visa will play in this venture is very important because we see the Internet and E-commerce as a key opportunity for moving forward in all aspects of business. We also believe that the Visa card is the ideal instrument for making payments across this virtual network," added Duys.
The new entity has as its initial focus the development of an e-commerce platform to allow the transfer of corporate and consumer websites to Mauritius-based servers. The intention is to add service packages to the platform to make Mauritius become a premier offshore financial and e-commerce service provider. It is the intention of the consortium to achieve NASDAQ listing for the venture within two years. Ms. Anne-L Cobb, President: Visa International CEMEA region, commented, "As the world`s largest consumer payment system, Visa is pleased to be a part of this venture which will provide business to business e-commerce services, and should further expand Mauritius` role in the global economy."
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Visa
As the "World`s Best Way to Pay," Visa is the world`s leading payment brand and the largest payment system worldwide with more volume than all other major payment cards combined. Visa plays a pivotal role in advancing new payment products and technologies to benefit its 21,000 member financial institutions and their cardholders. Visa has more than 80 smart card programs in 35 countries and on the Internet, with 23 million Visa chip cards, including 8 million Visa Cash cards. Visa is pioneering SET Secure Electronic Transaction(tm) programs to enable and advance Internet commerce. There are over 970 million Visa, Visa Electron, Interlink, PLUS and Visa Cash cards, which generate more than US$1.5 trillion in annual volume. Visa-branded cards are accepted at over 18 million worldwide locations, including at more than 550,000 ATMs in the Visa Global ATM Network. Visa`s Internet address is www.visa.com.