SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Visa (NYSE:V), alongside nearly 20 leading small business solution providers, today announced a new online resource for small businesses, Visa Small Business Hub, to help entrepreneurs build stronger customer relationships and expand their businesses. With a focus on how to start, run and grow a strong, digitally-enabled business, Visa Small Business Hubs are now live in more than 20 countries and tailored to each region’s unique SMB needs. Each Small Business Hub delivers a broad range of tools, special partner offers and actionable tips that business owners can easily implement to improve their businesses.
“The global economy won’t bounce back until small businesses bounce back,” said Mary Kay Bowman, global head of buyer and seller solutions, Visa. “Visa was founded on the idea that safe, fast and reliable digital payments should be available to everyone, everywhere. Today, we are more focused on this than ever, with the added goal of building simple and effective tools that small business owners can use to help make a real difference.”
In good times and challenging ones alike, small businesses and micro entrepreneurs power the global economy. Small businesses not only contribute half of all jobs globally1, they are the heart of local communities. Despite their importance, business owners often lack access to training, technology and financial tools that enable growth. The U.S. Visa Small Business Hub offers centralized access to information and Visa partners that focus on three main stages of the small business lifecycle:
- Starting Your Business. Beyond the initial big idea or plan to offer a new service, starting a business involves figuring out funding, assessing start-up costs, attracting customers, among other steps. The Visa Small Business Hub offers information and tools useful at this stage, and help from Visa partners including 3dcart, PayPal, Shift4 Payments, Tailor Brand, Wix.com and WordPress.com, as well as Visa’s own small business payments platform Authorize.Net.
- Running Your Business. No matter what stage a business is in, Visa Small Business Hub has tools to help manage finances, start selling online or tips on converting more browsers into buyers. Deluxe, FreshBooks, Lendio, Plastiq, Shopify and Wave provide deals, as well as educational resources, about financing, expenses and more.
- Growing Your Business. Reputation management and marketing are not only critical to driving sales, they can help build lasting customer connections particularly in an increasingly digital world. Learn how to effectively get the word out about your business and source support from Facebook Blueprint, Magnet by Figg, Trustpilot, Womply and Yelp.
“Navigating the waves of recovery brings unique challenges for small business owners. Meeting consumer demands for digital-first experiences can and should be a seamless undertaking, especially when resources can be found in a single place like the Visa Small Business Hub,” said Carleigh Jaques, senior vice president and general manager, CyberSource, Visa. “Authorize.Net’s payment and fraud solutions, expansive partner network and 24/7 customer service, can help businesses fast-track and grow their commerce with no monthly gateway fee for new customers until August 1, 2020.”
Visa is committed to helping micro and small businesses bounce back from the current environment. As a company that enables digital payments at more than 61 million merchant locations around the world, Visa’s priority is to help micro and small businesses thrive at every step.
- Earlier this week, Visa committed to digitally-enabling 50 million micro and small businesses worldwide in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and economic crisis.
- In April, the Visa Foundation announced a commitment of two programs totaling $210 million to support small and micro businesses to address an urgent need from local communities following the spread of COVID-19.
To learn more about resources available to micro and small businesses from Visa, visit the Small Business Hub and COVID-19 relief sources.
About Visa
Visa Inc. (NYSE: V) is the world’s leader in digital payments. Our mission is to connect the world through the most innovative, reliable and secure payment network - enabling individuals, businesses and economies to thrive. Our advanced global processing network, VisaNet, provides secure and reliable payments around the world, and is capable of handling more than 65,000 transaction messages a second. The company’s relentless focus on innovation is a catalyst for the rapid growth of digital commerce on any device for everyone, everywhere. As the world moves from analog to digital, Visa is applying our brand, products, people, network and scale to reshape the future of commerce. For more information, visit About Visa, visa.com/blog and @VisaNews.
1 World Bank Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) Finance Data