ADDING MORE

Having been with Visa for over 20 years, Andrew Torre, president of Visa's $9 billion value-added services business, has recently moved from leading the CEMEA region to leading its acceleration toward market-moving additional solutions. The veteran is ready for the challenge.

- BY RAWAN HASSAN

In an increasingly competitive digital marketplace, payment systems and fintech providers have turned to value-added services (VAS) to set them apart. No longer confined to basic processing transactions, VAS solutions deliver loyalty programs, advanced fraud prevention, data analytics, CRM integrations, and personalized offers that reshape how businesses engage customers. According to Data Bridge Market Research, the global mobile VAS market is projected to grow from $802.6 billion in 2024 to over $1.38 trillion by 2032.

Long before Visa’s VAS became a $9 billion business, many of its solutions were developed in emerging markets and scaled worldwide. Andrew Torre, the newly appointed President of Visa’s Value-Added Services, knows this firsthand. “Some of the very first VAS were developed in the CEMEA [Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa] region and then distributed globally,” he says. “What's changed is the scale, the sophistication, and the sheer demand from clients, navigating increasingly complex ecosystems.”

Visa was first established in 1958, when Bank of America launched the first consumer credit card program in the U.S. Visa’s international expansion followed in 1974, with the introduction of the debit card just a year later. In 2007, its regional businesses around the world unified to form Visa Inc. ahead of its IPO in 2008. The company is valued at $654.78 billion, with total assets of $91.9 billion, as of July 2025.

Visa now offers more than 250 VAS solutions developed over the past three decades, spanning fraud mitigation, issuing innovations, merchant enablement, and advisory services. The VAS business has been growing at over 20% annually since 2021, with an estimated addressable market of around $520 billion in financial services alone. “We've always delivered beyond card issuance and processing,” Torre notes.