Visa Highlights Contactless Payments At New York Fashion Week

To help consumers experience new ways to pay, Visa has announced a new relationship with New York Fashion Week: The Shows. Through the on-site experience, consumers will be able to tap to pay with contactless cards and devices, the company said in an announcement.

“We are constantly exploring sponsorship opportunities to help us diversify our brand and reach new audiences, while delivering experiences that drive business priorities,” Mary Ann Reilly, senior vice president for North America marketing at Visa, said in the announcement. “We are excited to work closely with this property to bring our vision for a contactless payments future to life.”

The event will have contactless-enabled vending machines that will feature items from designers such as Venessa Arizaga, Neely & Chloe, and Rebecca Minkoff. In addition, the vending machines are offering “buy one, get two,” which means that “every tap is an opportunity to pay it forward to friends who inspire them,” the company said in an announcement.

Contactless payments accounted for 45 percent of all Visa purchases in the 11 host cities during the FIFA World Cup. Fans from Poland, in particular, made up 74 percent of these transactions. Foreign tourists tended to outspend Russian fans during the tournament as well. More specifically, international Visa cardholders spent 15 percent more in-stadium than Russian cardholders. In terms of events, fans went all-out at the end of the tournament, as the France versus Croatia match on July 15 had the highest payment volume of the 64 matches.

During the tournament, fans were able to pay with contactless Visa credit and debit cards, and mobile payment services, at more than 3,500 point-of-sale (POS) terminals and 1,000 mobile concessionaires. In addition, fans could purchase one of 6,500 payment rings, 30,000 payment bands, and commemorative contactless Visa prepaid cards. Overall, Visa’s chief marketing and communications officer, Lynne Biggar, said that payment services at the World Cup have had a “demonstrable” impact on Visa’s business and brand.