Visa announced a global commitment to elevate 50 million small and micro businesses (SMBs) worldwide in an effort to get local communities back to business in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Visa is introducing a range of locally designed programs and solutions to enable SMBs to drive efficiency and sales through acceptance of digital payments, building online businesses and incentivizing neighborhood support. As part of the global commitment, Visa also formed the Visa Economic Empowerment Institute (VEEI) focused on economic and societal issues, including pandemic challenges SMBs face and closing racial and gender opportunity gaps.
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“Small businesses on the frontlines of the global economy deserve extraordinary support in this extraordinary time”
Small businesses will play a vital role in helping communities around the world recover – they account for more than half of global employment and yet, are among the most affected by the pandemic. Following the COVID-19 pandemic, 43% of SMBs say they only have money to last six months1 and less than half of SMBs have any online business2.
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In addition to the economic impact, COVID-19 is accelerating the use of digital commerce experiences, from people seeking new ways to pay that do not involve touching a terminal to a boom in eCommerce, as stay-home orders result in shopping online instead of in-store. How much people spend online is also increasing globally, with spend per active card-not-present cardholder up by over 25% in April, compared to January3.
“Small businesses on the frontlines of the global economy deserve extraordinary support in this extraordinary time,” said Al Kelly, CEO and chairman of Visa. “We are putting our network to work to help 50 million businesses globally not only survive, but also to thrive, along with the communities they serve.”
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