Visa Developer Community

You should know, not all of our users will receive this new monthly newsletter. In fact, the Visa Dev Community Newsletter will be sent to a select group of our users. Want to be part of it or didn't recieve it? Take these steps:   Once you are logged into your Community account, make sure to go account settings on the top right hand corner of your page Scroll down to "Marketing Communication Settings" and turn it on. Save settings We are excited to continue expanding our relationship with you and the rest of the Visa Developer Community while ensuring you have the platform to voice your ideas, share your expertise, and learn from your peers. That is why I am very excited to share the launch of the monthly Visa Dev Community Newsletter, exclusively for those who have created a Community profile, like you.   WHAT TO EXPECT:   This newsletter is all about what you and your fellow peers are up to on the Community, from forum hot topics to developer troubleshooting tips. We want to feature and showcase your expertise, so we’ll also announce each month’s super users and highlight what they’ve got going on – here’s your chance to shine!   Plus, find out about opportunities for you to get more involved with experts from Visa before anyone else, including invite-only webinars and in-person meetups, developer events.    INTRODUCE YOURSELF:   We want to get to know you! Head to our new Welcome Forum Thread and introduce yourself. Tell us what brings you to the community and our developer program. How can others help you? How can you help others?   VISADEV SWAG GIVEAWAY:   The first 25 to introduce themselves to the Welcome Board will receive a special VisaDev swag package including a hoodie, water bottle and $25 Visa gift card. The next 100 will receive a $25 Visa gift card and unlock the new Welcome Board community badge! Make sure to check out our offer terms and conditions here . We plan to have more fun challenges and opportunities – so, pro tip…the more you’re engaging the more opportunities you’ll have at some cool stuff in the future.   If you have any questions you can contact me directly at visadeveloper@visa.com . Otherwise, I look forward to chatting with you in our community!   Cheers, Ricardo Navarro Visa Developer Community Director  ... View more

  Digital transactions are the backbone of many online experiences—but the process behind them can be complex. That’s why we’ve created the Payments 101 webinar for developers to learn the ins and outs of the payments ecosystem—from developers in the payments space. Watch the Payments 101 Webinar and learn about the opportunities for innovation in payments. Hear from experts at Marqeta, Square and Visa as they dive deep into the payments ecosystem to help you start developing the next commerce solution. Speakers Ahmed Siddiqui, VP of Product Management at Marqeta, and Carl Perry, Developer Platform Lead at Square, will be joining us for our first highly-requested Payments 101 webinar.              After watching this webinar, developer will be able to: The ecosystem of payments, from issuers to acquirers Spaces for innovation in the payments landscape How knowing digital payments can help you code better experiences  Enjoyed the webinar? Leave a comment below on what you would like to see next!  ... View more

Introduce youself! Welcome to the Visa Dev Community :)    Not sure where to start? You're in the right place. We've got a great team of Visa API experts in our Community ready to help with any questions or challenges you might have.   Let's start with a quick intro, hit the reply button below and introduce yourself. Tell us what brings you to the Visa Developer Center and how can we help? How can you help others?   Ricardo here, the Community Director for Visa Developer. I currently live in San Francisco but originally from Florida where I went to the University of Florida I've been at Visa for three years now and love working on different projects to engage and grow our community. I am always looking for new ways to engage with you all so if you have any ideas or want us to be at an event let me know! The Visa Developer team is a smart and fun group to work with so feel free to reach out if you have any questions, we want to help you in a way we can.   ... View more

Hey Visa Dev Community!    Visa is helping organize the next PaymentsEd Forum and we want to host sessions you would be excited about. As a payments dev, what topics would interest you? What kind of sessions would help you understand payments better?   Comment below. ... View more

Please ensure your systems are updated to Visa Developer's latest security protocol ciphers to minimize disruption to your project.   Visa regularly reviews supported encryption standards to provide one of the best encryption protections for our APIs. As part of that commitment, we are deprecating older security protocols (ciphers) that do not meet current industry standards for connecting to our REST APIs.   All affected clients have been sent an email. If you received an email notice from Visa Developer, it is because our logs show your project is connecting to our REST APIs using one of the protocols or cipher suites that will be deprecated in VDP Sandbox by January 31, 2019 and in VDP Production in early 2019. Therefore, action is required on your part to help avoid interruption with your Visa Developer service.   What is a cipher suite   A cipher suite is a collection of encryption algorithms used to establish secure connections. VDP  will only support the following protocols and cipher suites for encrypted communication   TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384 TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256 TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_CHACHA20_POLY1305_SHA256 TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA384 TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA256 TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384   TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256   TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA256    TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA256    Impact   Emails titled "Please update to Visa Developer's latest security protocols" were sent to account users who are either Owners, Administrators or Developers for each affected account. If you did not receive this email notice, then your account is not affected, and no action is required.   If you did receive the email, action is required on your part to help avoid interruption with your Visa Developer service. Support for weak cipher suites will be removed on early 2019 and your project will become incompatible.   Take Action   Using the steps below, we strongly recommend you immediately test your system to determine if it is compatible with the new security requirements. If the test fails, you will need to plan for upgrading your system and verifying compatibility.   TEST: First, check your current system’s compatibility by making API calls to VDP Sandbox environment after February 1, 2019. UPGRADE: If you are unable to successfully connect to the Sandbox environment, you may need to upgrade your operating system’s security components. You may need to make configuration changes in your application to update the underlying software dependencies.   Action: Follow our tips for identifying connection errors and upgrading your environment for compatibility:    Configuring Cipher Suites   The following table shows the support in Java 7 and 8 for the cipher suites allowed by Visa.   Cipher Suite Java 7 Java 8 TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384 No Yes TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256 TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_CHACHA20_POLY1305_SHA256 No TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA384 Yes* Yes   TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA256 Yes** TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384 No TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256 TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA256 Yes* TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA256 Yes** * Unlimited strength crypto policy should be used and the cipher suite should be explicitly enabled. ** The cipher suite should be explicitly enabled   If you are using Java 8, you should be able to connect to Visa without any issues. If you are using Java 7 and are unable to connect to Sandbox environment, follow the instructions below.   If you are using Java’s   HttpsURLConnection   for making API calls, If you already have -Dhttps.cipherSuites JVM argument, add TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA256 and TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA256 cipher suites to the list, if they are not already present. Else, add the following JVM argument which enables TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA256 and TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA256 cipher suites in addition to the ones enabled by default in java 7. -Dhttps.cipherSuites =TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA256,TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA256,TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA,TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA,TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA,TLS_ECDH_ECDSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA,TLS_ECDH_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA,TLS_DHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA,TLS_DHE_DSS_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA,TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA,TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA,TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA,TLS_ECDH_ECDSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA,TLS_ECDH_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA,TLS_DHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA,TLS_DHE_DSS_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA,TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA,TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA,SSL_RSA_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA,TLS_ECDH_ECDSA_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA,TLS_ECDH_RSA_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA,SSL_DHE_RSA_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA,SSL_DHE_DSS_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA,TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_RC4_128_SHA,TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_RC4_128_SHA,SSL_RSA_WITH_RC4_128_SHA,TLS_ECDH_ECDSA_WITH_RC4_128_SHA,TLS_ECDH_RSA_WITH_RC4_128_SHA,SSL_RSA_WITH_RC4_128_MD5,TLS_EMPTY_RENEGOTIATION_INFO_SCSV If you are using   Apache HttpClient   for making API calls, provide the cipher suites list while constructing   SSLConnectionSocketFactory. SSLContext sslcontext = ... SSLConnectionSocketFactory sslSocketFactory = new    SSLConnectionSocketFactory(sslcontext,         new String[]{"TLSv1.2"},         new String[]{"TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA256",                 "TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA256",                 "TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA",                 "TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA",                 "TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA",                 "TLS_ECDH_ECDSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA",                 "TLS_ECDH_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA",                 "TLS_DHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA",                 "TLS_DHE_DSS_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA",                 "TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA",                 "TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA",                 "TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA",                 "TLS_ECDH_ECDSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA",                 "TLS_ECDH_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA",                 "TLS_DHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA",                 "TLS_DHE_DSS_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA",                 "TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA",                 "TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA",                 "SSL_RSA_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA",                 "TLS_ECDH_ECDSA_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA",                 "TLS_ECDH_RSA_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA",                 "SSL_DHE_RSA_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA",                 "SSL_DHE_DSS_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA",                 "TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_RC4_128_SHA",                 "TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_RC4_128_SHA",                 "SSL_RSA_WITH_RC4_128_SHA",                 "TLS_ECDH_ECDSA_WITH_RC4_128_SHA",                 "TLS_ECDH_RSA_WITH_RC4_128_SHA",                 "SSL_RSA_WITH_RC4_128_MD5",                 "TLS_EMPTY_RENEGOTIATION_INFO_SCSV"},         SSLConnectionSocketFactory.getDefaultHostnameVerifier()); CloseableHttpClient httpClient =    HttpClients.custom()    .setSSLSocketFactory(sslSocketFactory)    .build();   If you have enabled unlimited strength crypto policy, in the above steps, you can   optionally add TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA384 and TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA256 to the enabled cipher suites list.   Troubleshooting TLS issues   For troubleshooting TLS issues, you can start your application with   -Djavax.net.debug=allargument and make an API call to visa. You will see the following in your logs:   *** ClientHello, TLSv1.2 Cipher Suites: [TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA384, TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA384, TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA256,…]   This is the list of cipher suites enabled in your application. This list should include at least one of the cipher suites allowed by visa.   *** ServerHello, TLSv1.2 Cipher Suite: TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384   This is the cipher suite chosen for the HTTPS connection and will be one of the visa allowed cipher suites.              3. VERIFY: Once you have made the necessary changes, verify your upgraded system can connect successfully to the same test endpoint.   Our normal REST API endpoint already supports the stronger cipher suites, so you can promptly cut over your production traffic once the changes have been verified.   If you have any questions or need support, please comment below and we'll help! You also post your question on this forum thread.  We can also help if you reach us via email   developer@visa.com or your designated Visa contact. ... View more

Visa Developer was leveraged at HackYeah, the largest European Hackathon and 2 nd largest in the world.     The Visa Developer team wrapped up an awesome weekend during the last weekend of November, supporting developers at HackYeah , the largest European Hackathon held in Warsaw Poland. Over 2,100 developers crowded the Global Expo in Warsaw to solve over 20 challenge statements and only had 24 hours to hack!   This was an event not to miss, not to mention the special guest was Mateusz Morawiecki – Polish Prime Minister.   Visa was one of two strategic partners of the event and presented developers with two challenges:   Payments in the world of Internet of Things - Imagine the future intelligent and connected world and design solution that will unlock new commerce opportunities. Commerce Experiences of Tomorrow – Design the new quality and new value propositions around the commerce experience of the future. Embed the seamless, secure payments into your solutions powered by Visa APIs. 30 teams took on these challenges and with the support of Visa mentors two teams came out on top, each were awarded 3500 Euro each.   Team Beocoin - Winner of Payments in the World of Internet of Things Challenge   The team used IoT transmitters and Visa APIs to create merchant affinity and offer cardholders frictionless payment experiences in split payments. The Visa APIs they used with Visa Token Service, Payment Account Validation, Payment Account Attributes Inquiry and Visa Direct.       Team EZ Bill Sharing - Winner of Commerce Experiences of Tomorrow Visa Challenge    The team's project is a smarter way of sharing bills based on Visa Direct API, Geolocation and Bluetooth sensor in smartphones.        In true hackathon fashion, Visa set up a booth so developers can take a break from hacking. They were invited to relax in 9D Virtual Reality simulator or get some exercise and take part in some of the sport contests such as cycling or foosball.     The special entertainment zone was open around the clock and it allowed developers to regain forces for further programming challenges.       Thank you to all developers who joined us! Stay tuned for more from our winners as in an upcoming Q&A with the winning teams! ... View more

Developers mashed up Visa Developer and GM APIs to build apps that turn commuting from chaotic to carefree at Los Angeles Hackathon.       Road warriors get ready. Solutions to drivers’ biggest complaints may not be far in the future if the winning hacks at Code AutoMobility LA are any indication.   Over 140 developers came together to take on the challenge of s implifying and improving the world through connected vehicles and commerce.      Perhaps the most surprising demo was a vehicle-to-vehicle communication app that would allow one driver to pay another for the privilege of merging on the highway.   “I will allow you to cut in front of me for $5.” Definitely something I would use.    Some competitors were thinking three lanes outside the box (see what we did there? ) ) One team’s idea would allow for in-vehicle access when the driver isn’t around, enabling a designated stranger to open the trunk to retrieve an item while the driver is at work.   Another team devised a multitasking app that could conceivably improve local infrastructure. Drivers could snap photos of potholes they encounter, then send them to the city with the possibility of being rewarded for their diligence.   Visa and GM awarded $85,000   in prize money to developers who could solve problems for drivers, passengers, retailers and city planners by creating innovative connected-car solutions to ease congestion, reduce emissions and facilitate in-car payment solutions. Though competing developers took vastly different approaches to the challenge, their solutions had a common thread: making shopping and commuting easier for drivers. The opportunities they addressed included:   Parking.   Hacks enabled drivers to order ahead, pay for parking and know the precise location of their spots in advance of the trip. Some cars may soon communicate with parking meters so the meter knows exactly when the vehicle is in the spot. Not only does that mean no more stuffing coins in meters, it means consumers may pay only for the time they’ve actually used the spot. Lines.   Vanquished. Soon connected cars won’t just allow drivers to order via voice as they drive, they can determine which coffee shops have the shortest lines, helping commuters and merchants alike. Preventative maintenance.   When a repair needs to be scheduled, a vehicle can automatically make the appointment with a mechanic or dealership—and pay for it in advance.   And the winners are:   1st Place - TRIBALSCALE       Tribal Scale won the grand prize of  $40,000  for their in-car AI-driven e-commerce platform which allows consumers to purchase items directly from the vehicle for curbside pickup, eliminating parking needs.  Commuting and looking for parking in LA is inefficient and costly, so the team created GM OrderNow, an in-car AI-driven e-commerce platform which allows consumers to purchase items directly from the vehicle for curbside pickup, eliminating parking needs. The platform is comprised of apps that offer: 1) dynamic voice enabled purchases from in-vehicle, 2) an intelligent parking system, 3) inventory collection management, and 4) a turn-key voice assistant for store owners. Together, this team estimated the system will reduce daily commute times by 40%. APIs used – Intermixed Visa Checkout and Visa Direct push payments as well as utilized Merchant Search along with GM’s Drive mode Manager    2ND PLACE - PIT STOP     Pit Stop won second place and received  $30,000  for their machine learning predictive maintenance solution for ride share drivers   3RD PLACE: VHub     3rd Place:  VHub won third place and received  $15,000  for their monthly membership plan that improves consumer's EV charger experience by charging one rate and eliminating the need for multiple apps.   Stay tuned for more from the winning teams and their idea, join the Visa Developer Commmunity today by creating an account here. ... View more

Erico Rodrigues   Visa Director Solution Architecture Erico Rodrigues is IT Technical graduate at High School, Bachelor of Computer Information Systems, with post-graduation in IT and PMO. He has been at Visa for 5 years. He’s responsible leading Solution Design implementation using mostly VISA’s API and third party payments technology. He has + 13 years of experience in Telecom/IT/Payment industries. He’s passionate about learning new technologies.  Watch this webinar to  learn the fundamentals behind integrating Visa APIs into the chatbot experience—including how to build our Foreign Exchange Rate API into a messenger application. Join Erico in this live coding session to learn how to configure Visa Developer certificats and so much more!                     After watching this webinar, developer will be able to: Learn how to configure VDP certificates in VDP environment Setup Facebook Messenger account Setup and configure Chabot service in your local machine *Mostly tools and requirements are open source. Visa does not have any responsibility about it. Enjoyed the webinar? Leave a comment below on what you would like to see next!  ... View more

Learn how to generate a CSR file using Java Keytool for your Visa Developer project.    Leave a comment below or visit our forum for more help.     ... View more

Get tips on how to submit a going live request when you are ready to move into prod with your Visa Developer project.  Leave a comment below or  visit our forum  for more help.             ... View more

Learn how to create a project and where to find test data, credentials and sample code.  Leave a comment below or visit our forum for more help.             ... View more

First time to the Visa Developer Center? Watch this tutorial to learn where to find the Visa APIs that fit your business need or use-case. Have a question? Leave a comment below or visit our forum for more help.              ... View more

This year at the Money 20/20 Hackathon, developers were tasked with innovatiing solutions to help solve the problem of global financial exclusion and bring more people into the financial system.        In Visa’s fourth consecutive year of sponsorship, Visa had another outstanding performance at the Money 20/20 Hackathon, which took place in Las Vegas. Visa won the entire hackathon for the second year in a row – with one of the Visa Challenge teams taking first place out of 80 total teams and 59 percent of team’s using the Visa Developer Center for their solution.   This year’s challenge tasked developers with innovating solutions to help solve the problem of global financial exclusion and to bring more people into the financial system. Visa’s Social Impact team partnered with Visa Developer to support developer teams on-site as they created financial inclusion solutions in one of these categories:   Cash-free solutions Credit Access to financial education and business skills Identity Verification The goal: leverage Visa APIs to help individuals or small businesses use more secure, convenient, and affordable payment products or financial services to meet their everyday needs and reach their long-term financial goals.   After 24 hours of coding, 4 Visa teams came out on top.       Bank of America Team wins 1st Place for Visa Challenge   InstaPay aims to digitize in-person cash checking transactions with check scanning and instant issuance of Visa card to digital wallets. The team used VDP for Visa Offers, Visa Direct and Identity Document APIs.     PNC Bank Team wins 2nd place for Visa Challenge    Visa Cares placed in the top 10 of participants and won $5,000 from Money 20/20.  The solution enables unbanked or underbanked individuals to get community loans and build credit history.  The team leveraged VDP for Visa Direct and Visa Identity Documents APIs.       Chase Bank takes 3rd Place for Visa Challenge    Money Clips won $15,000 from Money20/20 by placing in the Top 5 overall.  The solution proactively helps households and families manage their finances and savings by allowing users to create short or long-term life financial goals. The app enables users to set spending limits for specific categories and uses VDP’s Visa Transaction Controls API to restrict spending.      ViSync, Money 20/20’s grand prize winner and Visa challenge finalist   ViSync was chosen to pitch their idea on the Money20/20 stage in front of hundreds of investors and media. Their session took place minutes before Richard Branson took the stage where they pitched their solution using VDP’s Visa Direct and Visa Transaction Controls to allow remittance senders insight and control on how money is spent.       ... View more

Symon Perriman plans to integrate Visa Checkout in FanWide, a digital platform for sports fan clubs.   Growing up, Symon Perriman moved around a lot and like many sports fans, he was often living away from his favorite teams’ hometown. As Symon moved for college and work brought him to new cities, he used sports as way to connect to the city and develop new friendships. It was through hosting and attending his local alumni game watch parties where he began to meet friends with similar interests.   For nearly a decade, he put these watch parties on but kept experiencing the same frustrations around unprepared venues or lack of communication channels to socialize the games to true fans. And that is how FanWide was born.     We are excited to introduce you to Symon who will be working with the Visa Developer Platform to enhance the FanWide platform and bring more services to its users. We caught up with Symon as he gets ready to integrate Visa Checkout.   Tell us a little bit about yourself.    I’m Symon Perriman , a 33 year-old tech entrepreneur living in Seattle.  I was born in England and my family immigrated to the United States when I was nine.  I grew up in New Jersey, then went to college at Duke, where I earned degrees in Computer Science, Economics, and Digital Media.  I was recruited out of college by Microsoft, which brought me to Seattle where I have been living since, and where I met my wife.  I spent eight years at Microsoft, splitting my time as an engineer building their cloud platform, and as a technical evangelist, promoting their cloud and datacenter solutions.    Working for an established company was a great way to launch my career, but I have always been an entrepreneur at heart, and so I ran my own consulting company on the side and built around a hundred mobile apps and websites for clients.  In 2015 I joined a Microsoft partner, 5nine Software, as their VP of Business Development and Marketing, then launched FanWide in 2016 and have been running it fulltime since.  Throughout my life I’ve lived in over a dozen cities and traveled to over fifty countries, so I’ve always used sports to connect with people and find a community wherever I visited, which is what inspired me to create FanWide.   What is FanWide?   FanWide is a free digital platform for fan clubs which helps displaced sports fans find a local game watch party at a sports bar for any team in any city, using the world's largest fan club database.  Millions of out-of-market fans can use FanWide to find the closest community event for their favorite team and check in for rewards, wherever they are living or traveling.  Sports bars use FanWide to find new customers and promote their events – over half a million in the past year! Fan clubs and alumni associations use FanWide's digital platform to expand their network, organize events, communicate with local fans, collect and report attendance data, enter contests, collect donations, and activate food or drink discounts from the event host or team sponsors.     Sports teams and leagues, as well as athletes and influencers, can use FanWide's Sports Data Platform to grow their audience, analyze fan engagement, and develop new fan clubs, and all of FanWide’s services can be integrated within the team’s website or app. FanWide also offers sponsors a new targeted marketing channel through its digital platform, and on-site activations during thousands of in-person events which function like a "virtual stadium", allowing sponsors to engage any team’s most loyal fans in any city.  FanWide's network allows teams and brands to offer merchandise, game tickets, and other digital or physical goods to these fan clubs. Long-term FanWide wants to provide the world's leading platform to automatically connect hosts and fans of any interest group, including esports, gaming, TV shows, politics, trivia and more.   What inspired the idea for FanWide?   I have always found that sports are a great way to connect people, as they transcend language, gender, nationality, and ethnicity.  My father was in the military, so my family was constantly moving around, and I found that sports were a great way to make new friends.  When we immigrated to the United States, my family continued to use sports as a way to meet others and assimilate into the local community.  I moved across the country for college, then again for my first job, and always used sports to develop new friendships.  As a work transplant, it was tough to find friends with the same interests until I began attending and promoting basketball game watch parties for our local alumni club.  However, organizing them was usually inefficient, and although we would bring dozens or hundreds of fans to every event, the bars were often understaffed and unprepared, even though we were generating thousands of dollars in new sales for them.  Over the next decade, I was traveling half of the time and hated trying to find my game on the TV in the hotel, wishing I could safely explore the city and socialize.  I realized that sports fans in every city needed an easy way to get together to watch their team play, and that venues would pay a service to help them fill their seats.   What is the proudest moment so far for FanWide?   There is not a single moment that stands out, but rather a collective experience, which is when we help people form meaningful relationships.  During the events which FanWide has promoted, sports fans have reconnected with old classmates, formed business partnerships, made new friends, and even developed romantic relationships!  This was even more common during the World Cup when we were helping immigrants rediscover their roots, and we even received some international press from this.  It is rewarding to see how FanWide can genuinely make an impact in people’s lives.   What about challenges for FanWide? How were you able to work around them?   Our biggest challenge has been establishing ourselves within the sports industry, as our leadership team are primarily engineers.  It seems that a majority of influencers and leaders in the sports industry are former college and pro athletes, so it was much harder to find the right connections and build trust, compared to traditional businesses.  Additionally, working with the sports teams themselves was challenging, as they are (mostly) billion-dollar brands with non-conventional economics due to their high demand.  Some organizations even expected FanWide to pay them to use our technology and services! We worked around these challenges by developing our relationships with sports influencers over time, which came through meeting them at conferences and from personal introductions through our extended network.  We developed an advisory board with sports industry veterans in broadcasting, sponsorships, advertising, and hospitality, and compensated them with equity in our company.  We have recently added former Seattle Seahawks Pro-Bowler and Super Bowl Champion Cliff Avril as a brand ambassador, advisor, and investor .  More importantly, we have established relationships with several professional teams by showing them how we can develop fan clubs throughout the country with free trials.  Now that we are starting to establish ourselves in the sports industry and build credibility, we are beginning to see a snowball effect as we become a brand name for fan clubs throughout the country.   How do you envision Visa Developer expanding FanWide capabilities or services?   Part of FanWide’s core mission is to develop and support communities, and we have an extensive network of passionate sports fans that want to contribute to their alumni association, favorite teams’ charitable foundations, or athletes’ philanthropical initiatives.  One of our product’s top feature requests was to enable charitable donations to these groups directly through FanWide’s platform.  We have looked at various payment systems and were excited to discover that Visa Checkout (part of the Visa Developer Platform) offers a free payment gateway, which maximizes the money which gets donated to the charity.  Soon sports fans will be able to support their favorite team and a great cause through FanWide!   Any tips for developers who are curious about integrating payments in to their app?   It is important to make sure that the payment system meets the needs of not just the developers, but also the business and design teams.  First, we did a business assessment, and Visa Checkout was the best payment gateway because of its free transactions, so we could maximize the money which went to charity.  Additionally, it provided a secure platform from a trusted organization, while supporting multiple payment types.   Next, we reviewed the code, and our development team liked this solution because it was clean, flexible, and easily fit into our website and mobile apps.  Seamless integration is critical whenever you are adding a new technology into an existing product to avoid regressions and provide a consistent end user experience.   Finally, our design team evaluated the UI and UX guidelines to ensure that it fit into FanWide’s existing product and user workflows.  This also passed the test as the Visa Checkout interface was well structured and documented so that the donation process would be streamlined, and FanWide could continue to provide our users with a great experience.   Stay tuned for more blogs from Visa Devleoper Influential Programmer, @SymonPerriman. He'll be documenting his journey using Visa Developer and integrating Visa Checkout into FanWide's platform. You'll get some expert dev tips to help you get started with Visa APIs.       ... View more

What is happening?   Please be advised that due to a certificate change with Symantec, there are changes needed by your team to ensure there isn’t an impact to your API calls to Visa Developer. Below includes information on how to update your Trust Store and ensure that your systems are updated in time to avoid any business impact.   What is impacted?   All API calls to the following three domains https://sandbox.api.visa.com/ https://cert.api.visa.com/  https://api.visa.com/   Why is this happening?   Visa Developer leverages GeoTrust – which is a subsidiary CA of Symantec - for the SSL/TLS certificates for the three domains listed above. Of late, DigiCert took over validation and issuance for all Symantec Website Security SSL/TLS certificates. As a result, the new certificates for the three domains are being issued from a new PKI infrastructure from DigiCert. This means that the Root CA certificate installed in your Trust Store (that is used to make API calls to the above three domains) has to be changed over from GeoTrust to DigiCert.   What do I need to do?   Action Item 1: Add the DigiCert Global Root CA certificate to your Trust Store that connects to https://sandbox.api.visa.com When: Before October 1 st , 2018   This is to enable you to test out your Trust Store configuration in the Visa Developer Sandbox environment (https://sandbox.api.visa.com) before making the same change in the production API calls to https://api.visa.com   The DigiCert Global Root CA certificate is available for download at https://dl.cacerts.digicert.com/DigiCertGlobalRootCA.crt (Overall link: https://www.digicert.com/digicert-root-certificates.htm )   If you use a JKS file as your Trust Store Refer: https://docs.oracle.com/javase/6/docs/technotes/guides/security/jsse/JSSERefGuide.html#Stores )   You can perform the following instructions to add the DigiCert Global Root CA certificate to your Trust Store. Download the DigiCert Global Root CA certificate from https://dl.cacerts.digicert.com/DigiCertGlobalRootCA.crt to your local folder. Backup your Trust Store JKS file as a safeguard. Then, run the following keytool command to add it your Trust Store   keytool -import -alias DigiCertGlobalCA -keystore <Path to JKS (Trust Store) file> -file DigiCertGlobalRootCA.crt   As part of your earlier onboarding process to Visa Developer, you should have already added the GeoTrust Global Root CA certificate to your Trust Store.   Please ensure that you do not remove the original GeoTrust Global Root CA certificate until after October 27 th .   Action Item 2: Add the DigiCert Global Root CA certificate to your Trust Store that connects to https://cert.api.visa.com and to https://api.visa.com When: Before October 16 th , 2018   The steps to perform the same are exactly identical to the steps provided under “Action Item 1”. The only difference is the Trust Store you are applying it to.   Action Item 3: Remove the GeoTrust Global Root CA certificate from your Trust Store for all 3 domains impacted When: Post October 27 th , 2018   Post October 27 th , you can clean up the older GeoTrust Global CA certificate from your Trust Store since that will no longer be required.   If you use a JKS file as your Trust Store, then you can run the following command to remove the GeoTrust Global Root CA certificate from your Trust Store. Firstly, backup your Trust Store JKS file as a safe-guard. The keytool command below assumes that the alias for the GeoTrust Global Root CA certificate in the JKS is “geotrustglobalca”. If otherwise, please use the appropriate alias.   keytool -delete -alias geotrustglobalca -keystore   <Path to JKS (TrustStore) file>   If you use middleware software at your site/data-center between your Java service and API call to Visa Developer, then please ensure that the Trust Store in your middleware software is configured appropriately. Fundamentally, the system at your end that establishes the TLS connection with Visa Developer is the one that needs the Trust Store updated with the DigiCert certificate.   If you use programming languages other than Java, then you would need to perform the appropriate steps for your programming language/tech-stack for addition of the DigiCert Global Root CA certificate hosted at https://dl.cacerts.digicert.com/DigiCertGlobalRootCA.crt to the relevant Trust Store leveraged by your system.   Please note that failure to trust the DigiCert Global Root CA certificate before October 16 th will result in Visa API service interruption.   Make sure to read the Geotrust Certificate FAQs for more.    If you have any questions please contact your designated Visa contact or developer@visa.com ... View more

The Visa Challenge 2 nd Place winning team wants to bring practical Artifical Intelligence app to Small Businesses around the world.       The team of five created Vision AI for Small Business because of the recent trend in machine learning and are working to get small businesses to actually use their open source project.   What is AI Vision for SMB and how did you come up with the idea?   AI Vision SMB is an app that leverages AI and object detection on top of traditional security cams to determine how busy the business is locally and how much inventory it has.   Why focus on Small Businesses?   Small business is the backbone of our economy, and as we make more advancement in the tech and AI, we should look at how we can utilize it to help the small businesses.   What are the opportunities for developers in building solutions for Small Businesses?   SMB will need a lot of technology advancement ranging from AI, IoT to Blockchain.  As this will help SMB to be more efficient and less wasteful.   What are the benefits Small Businesses have by using technology in their day to day operations?   SMB can access a deeper understanding of their business.  For example, they can now correlate between customer count and revenue, if they see customer could not goes up and profit goes down, it maybe the best idea to raise prices.   What Visa APIs are you using in the project and what user pain-point does it address?   We used Visa queue insight to provide competitor analysis and merchant to merchant to make new orders when inventory is low.   How else could use see commerce being included in the application?   You can buy local ads automatically when you see customers not showing up.   Why did you choose to submit for the Visa Challenge?   Because I believe Visa can make a difference to help SMB to reach their full potential.   What is next for AI Vision for SMB?   We are going to try to sell to a few SMBs and see if we can push the product forward. ... View more

Visa Challenge 1 st Place Winners came up with the idea for Blindsight as part of high school engineering final project.         Senioritis. Commonly known as the affliction of students in their final year of high school characterized by a decline in motivation or performance. Did you experience this? Well, team Blindsight did not.   This past May, just weeks away from graduation, a team of high school students formed to work on their final high school engineering project. That’s when the idea for Blindsight was created and since then, the team has not stopped.   Blindsight is an assistive armband for the visually impaired. A camera continually takes images of the user's surroundings, and a description of these images are read out loud to the user, allowing visually impaired people to visualize their environment despite not being able to see.   This idea and product won 1 st place in their high school entrepreneur project, Grand Prize for the China-US Young Maker Competition Regional Qualifier (becoming one of the ten teams to represent the US in China) and now Visa Challenge 1 st Place Winner for The TechCrunch Disrupt Hackathon.   The team is now preparing for the Disrupt Semi-Finals where they will demo Blindsight in hopes of winning the first-ever global virtual TechCrunch Hackathon.   How did you come up with idea for Blindsight?   Our team came up with the idea for Blindsight as part of our high school engineering final project. One of our friend’s dad suffers from a condition that renders him almost completely blind, and we were surprised to learn that the headset he currently uses costs a staggering $10,000. With our backgrounds in software and hardware development, we were confident that we could address some of the difficulties blind people face through a new combination of ubiquitous technology. After a few weeks of intensive prototyping, our team had established a functional concept device that enabled ‘sight’ through touch, and thus Blindsight was born.   Why do you think some mobile apps have not tapped in to creating their solutions for visually impaired?   We believe that there are a number of factors inhibiting the creation and adoption of new solutions for the visually impaired. Developers often prioritize rapid advancements in functionality for their products at the cost of integrating accessibility, since the population of visually impaired individuals is relatively small compared to their overall target markets. If developers do choose to focus on accessibility technologies, there is often a disconnect between the developed solution and the actual needs of blind people themselves. Because of these factors, technology for the visually impaired has not advanced at the same rate as in our society at large.   Have you tested this with any visually impaired people? If so, what has been their reaction?   As we began working on Blindsight, we were able to leverage social media and our professional networks to organically connect with nearly a dozen visually impaired individuals. The response we have received has been very positive and reassuring, since our primary focus with Blindsight is to make a truly useful and functional device. We have used our contacts with these individuals to inform and modify our design choices as we iterated on the product. At this stage in development, we are not yet ready to send beta devices to visually impaired individuals, though we hope to reach this milestone soon.   What Visa APIs are you using in the project and what user pain-point does it address?   We utilized the Visa ATM Location API, the Locate Merchant API, Visa Direct API, and the Mobile Location Confirmation API in this project. Through the use of these features, we are able to provide a better payment solution for blind people, and also allow them to make simple direct transactions. Additionally, we can find blind-friendly ATMs specifically for the user, and utilize location confirmation to prevent fraud.   How else could use see commerce being included in the application?   VISA is already a broadly accepted commerce platform, and we believe that our integration with VISA will encourage local businesses to become blind-friendly. Through notifications integrated with Blindsight, wearers will be able to preferentially select establishments that have accessible features, like blind-friendly ATMs. As we develop further, we believe that commerce can be integrated to make the user’s life simpler while also incentivizing accessibility for businesses.   Why did you choose to submit for the Visa Challenge?   As we began to build out features for Blindsight and the accompanying smart assistant, we recognized that payment handling was an area of potential concern for the visually impaired. Current app-based solutions are able to handle actual monetary currency, but a safe and secure credit card solution was lacking. By integrating with the widely utilized VISA platform and submitting for this challenge, our team was able to add important functionality and also win funds to further improve our device and design.   What is next for Blindsight?   Our team aims to utilize the funds we have won and also seek additional capital to advance our product to the next step. We are in the process of determining options for manufacturing our device into a much smaller profile that better resembles the traditional image of a smartwatch. We are also working on incorporating new software and hardware technologies, including a dynamic Braille ‘display.’   Stay up to date on the latest from TechCrunch Disrupt results by following us on Twitter @VisaDeveloper or signing up for our newsletters here. ... View more

22 teams submitted for the Visa Challenge in this year’s first ever global virtual TechCrunch Disrupt Hackathon.   It sure has been an exciting 2 months! Since June, more than 1,000 developers, programmers and hackers from all over the globe have been working on creative solutions to submit for the first-ever global virtual TechCrunch Disrupt hackathon.   As a refresher, Visa joined the fun by adding a special contest and prize. We challenged developers to submit a game-changer – a new creative way to improve the payment experience for anyone, anywhere.     Developers did not disappoint. 22 teams submitted to “Disrupt Commerce” hoping to land in the top three spots. It wasn’t easy narrowing it down, there were so many impressive hacks. But…(drum roll)…here they are:   1st PLACE –“Blindsight:Virtual Eyes Through Haptic Feedback”   Prize: $8,000 and Innovator Passes to the SF Disrupt Conference   A wearable device with the potential to greatly increase the independence of the blind. Blindsight is an armband and smartphone app combination, designed to help the visually impaired by integrating machine learning with haptic feedback. Blindsight is capable of sending and receiving payments through the Visa API integration. The relevant Visa APIs allow for finding ATMs and merchants that accept VISA, along with a credit card fraud prevention and mobile payment solution. Watch their demo here  and stay tuned, next week we’ll have a Q&A with the team on how they created this hack!   Blindsight also landed a spot as a semi-finalist Virtual Hackathon team, that will demo their product at Disrupt SF 2018!   2nd PLACE - “AI Vision for SMB”   Prize - $5,000 and Innovator Passes to the SF Disrupt Conference   This AI vision kit can be used to count items, includes multiple cameras on a single unit to track multiple things and uses a data storage solution for small businesses. Its purpose is to provide a deeper analysis using the computer vision data that can help business owners to make decisions. It can provide insights on how busy a physical store is, matched to the revenue that it is generating, along with insights to the wait time of similar stores through Visa Queue Insights. Plus, it is meant to track inventory through the same computer vision. Watch their demo here and stay tuned for a Q&A with AI Vision for Small Business next week.   3rd PLACE – “Agri360”   Prize: Oculus Rift and Innovator Passes to the SF Disrupt Conference   Cryptographically secured credit risk score for small farmers. Credit risk score using TensorFlow ML platform and Blockchain technology. Watch their demo here and stay tuned for a Q&A with Agri360 next week in our blogs   10 Visa teams as TechCrunch Disrupt Semi-Finalist   These Visa Challenge teams landed one of 30 spots in the Semi-Finals demo pit. Only the top 10 will move on to demo their hack on The Next Stage.   Good-luck Visa Dev Squad!   Rivis faceStylr Check-In, Cheque-Out SeeThru Price Transparency Marketplace GeoWorx PruPay UPayBro Airship bot Pricepoint Blindsight – Virtual Eyes Through Haptic Feedback   Congrats to all teams who competed in the hackathon and best of luck to those in the Semi-Finals. ... View more

Peoples Payment Solutions, in working with TELUS Health and Payment Solutions, will be among the first companies in Canada to leverage the Visa Developer Platform. They will use Visa Direct APIs, a business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) solution to better serve their customers with quick, simple and secure payments.   “Time to move money was very in demand from our customers; to be able to get money to and from people faster than traditional methods. We wanted to bring to market a fast funds product to the Canadian region,” said Howard Klein, President at Peoples Payment Solutions.       “When the opportunity came that we could integrate directly with the Visa Developer Platform, we felt that was our quickest path to get our products to market and it turned out to be the case. The Visa Direct API allowed us to bring to market a very compelling product in a very short period of time,” said Klein.   Once in market, Peoples Payment Solutions and TELUS Health’s Health Benefits Management platform, powered by Visa Developer, will enable push payments directly into a customer’s Visa debit account in real-time. This will significantly speed up funds disbursements for patients who are, for example, submitting benefits claims from healthcare professionals, shortening it to instant reimbursement versus waiting several days to a week for payout.   “Working with innovative companies like Visa and Peoples Payment Solutions allows us to lead the way in providing an even better, faster benefit claims experience for our insurance partners and ultimately, plan members,” said Luc Vilandré, Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, TELUS Health and Payment Solutions. “Leveraging the power of real-time technology to disburse funds instantly is far more efficient for patients and removes an unnecessary layer of complexity, enhancing the overall benefits experience.”   “We are first in Canada to bring the Visa Direct solution directly to fintechs, SMBs, and enterprise customers. Working in conjunction with technology leaders, like Visa and TELUS Health, we can now offer a comprehensive set of APIs that enable businesses to send real-time payments to Visa debit cards in Canada," said Howard Klein, President at Peoples Payment Solutions. "We are seeing continued innovation in the payments landscape, and at Peoples Payment Solutions, we are demonstrating our ability to lead with emerging technology.”   Visa Direct transforms payments by creating a convenient and frictionless way to send and receive money, regardless of borders or location. The Visa Direct platform is already available in more than 200 markets around the world, and enables a range of real-time payment use cases backed by the security and scale of Visa’s global payment network, including:    Business-to-business: enabling businesses to pay freelancers, contractors, and other small businesses – in real time. Business-to-consumer: enabling businesses to send almost any kind of payment directly to a bank account – such as insurance payouts and real-time merchant settlement. Person-to-person: enabling consumers to pay each other quickly, conveniently, and securely, often through their connected devices – such as when splitting bills or giving gifts.  Learn more about and test  the Visa Direct APIs here.  ... View more