Rajiv Kapoor has had the pick of marketing jobs with blue chip FMCG brands in the league of Procter & Gamble, Nestle and Pepsi. But it was the mammoth scale of the credit card business that seduced him to Visa International.
"When it comes to FMCG, you get to US$20 billion and that's big. Visa is a $1 trillion business (globally)," he says.
Even more attractive was the fact that when he was headhunted for the Visa job six years ago, the market was still expanding at 10 to 15 per cent a year, with considerable room for further growth, given that the company's global turnover accounted for only six per cent of worldwide consumption expenditure and four per cent of global GDP.
So he became Visa's executive vice-president of marketing/product sales for Asia-Pacific. Since then, the engineer-trained marketer has been having "the time of his life" with the multi-dimensional challenges the job offers.
"In an FMCG environment, there's almost a laser-like focus on marketing discipline. You delve very deeply into the consumer psyche. You research everything inside out. It's a very disciplined approach," he says. "Visa is in true essence like a technology company in the guise of a financial services company. It has to be in the forefront of technology."
What's more intriguing is that the customers are also the owners of the brand - Visa's board members are banks that issue Visa cards. "Can you imagine a situation in Pepsi, say, where you have bottlers who are your customers, but also your owners? How would you operate that platform?" he says.
The trick is to spend the fees generated from members on technological advancements, advertising and promotion initiatives that generate financial returns for the member banks.
"We are building the railroad (the strategic platforms) that the members can ride on. They can embellish their carriages as they want," he says.
Visa's railroad has been carrying the biggest load among all card issuers.
In 2002, 62 per cent of worldwide card transactions at point of sales were made through the Visa network.
Visa is in such a strong position that it considers cash, rather than other card issuers such as Mastercard and American Express, as its key competitor.
"Visa, from the consumer standpoint, has the better mind space with consumers.
MasterCard is like a poorer cousin because it doesn't have its own distinctive identity. Amex is too aspirational and too exclusive, while Diners and JCB are also niche players. Our single most overriding objective is to continue to penetrate cash," Kapoor notes.
Cash is a much more alluring pie than card payments, considering that 80 per cent of global consumption is settled by cash: "We have to look at the cash part of the pie, rather than fighting in the smaller pie which is the card payment pie."
Hot on the heels of its recent launch of its mini card, Visa intends to push debit cards in Asia, as the growth for credit card payment is slowing, signalling the approach of saturation.
"We have seen evidence from the US and other markets that debit is overtaking credit in terms of number of transactions. In volume terms, credit is 40 per cent of debit," Kapoor says.
Visa intends to introduce cash-back or cash-out facility from debit cards issued in India, Indonesia and Thailand that already have a good debit card base: "It gets rid of cash handling and drives cash out of the system."
The battle for the cash pie will continue to be built on Visa's baseline brand positioning of "ubiquitous and universal acceptance".
KAPOOR: ON THE RECORD
A lean organisation We are very cost conscious. We are very focused on being able to drive the best output for the members most efficiently or as cost-effectively as we can for maximum output
An important asset The Visa brand is the most important asset that the member (banks) own. They recognise that. So it's our fiduciary duty to be able to provide them with the most cost-efficient service, to continue to strengthen the brand so they can leverage it.
Our two strategic pillars One is of course the Visa brand, and the other is our system's network - the inter-operability, the real time transaction capability.
Huge opportunity There's huge opportunity to serve consumers with different needs - for credit and for debit to pay for smaller ticket items which are cash-based. There is no cannibalisation between the two.
Projecting to the mainstream We were quite smart in our marketing programmes and the way we targeted consumers and work with members.