myTU, the fintech pioneering the use of cloud-only infrastructure and AI to transform banking, has attained Principal Member status with Visa Europe. The achievement reinforces myTU’s high standards of security, resilience, and compliance in its payment operations, and opens new ways for the fintech startup to differentiate its brand via enhanced control and flexibility of payment services.

myTU is growing rapidly and currently serves more than 26,000 customers representing over 100 nationalities. myTU offers customers a debit card for all their daily transactions, whether they're at home or travelling abroad. As a Visa Principal Member, myTU can now issue Visa cards directly to its clients without relying on third parties. As a result, it gains the ability to design and implement its own card programs, and customise features that will accelerate myTU’s business strategy. In addition, myTU boosts its ability to remain competitive with access to Visa's latest technologies and innovations via the Visa API. With greater flexibility to develop new and innovative financial products, myTU expects to maintain leadership in its market segments through advances in payment security and mobile payments.

Raman Korneu, CEO and co-founder of myTU, commented: “We’re very proud of this achievement, which involved passing a rigorous audit by Visa to ensure myTU is compliant with operational and regulatory requirements. We now have direct access to Visa's widely accepted and secure card scheme. It also gives us early access to important payment innovations, such as the Visa Token Service, that will ensure myTU remains at the front of innovation.” 

The Visa Token Service is a new security technology from Visa which replaces sensitive account information, such as the 16-digit account number, with a unique “token” or digital identifier that allows payments without exposing account details. 

In separate developments, myTU says it expects to integrate with Google Pay and Apple Pay within Visa Token Service in the first quarter of 2024. It also announced that it has got its Visa issuance licence passported across the entire European Economic Area (EEA).