Square's payments chief joins Visa as head of seller solutions

Reuters
FILE PHOTO: Security staff stand next to a Visa logo at Murtala Muhammed International Airport before the arrival of the Nigerian Women’s Bobsled Team, in Lagos, Nigeria, as part of preparations ahead of the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympic Games, February 1, 2018. REUTERS/Afolabi Sotunde

(Reuters) - Visa Inc (V.N) on Friday said https://usa.visa.com/visa-everywhere/blog.entry.html/2019/01/11/mary_kay_bowman_join-lrU0.html Mary Kay Bowman will join as head of the business that is tasked to attract more customers to use the world's largest payments network.

Bowman joins from Square Inc (SQ.N), where she was head of payments. Her departure is the second high-profile exit from the payments processor following the departure of its Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar in December last year.

At Visa, Bowman will head the designing, development and delivery of new services, the company said.

Bowman's resume includes stints at Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O), where she was a director of global payments.

Payments processing companies such as Visa and Mastercard (MA.N) have been facing headwinds from digital payments companies, like Square and PayPal Holdings Inc (PYPL.O) which have blossomed in the midst of a fintech boom in the U.S.

Square, which is led by Twitter (TWTR.N) CEO Jack Dorsey, has been one of the top companies in the fintech arena that have been giving bigger payment processors a run for their money and is re-orienting itself to become more small merchant-friendly.

(This story corrects headline and paragraph 2 to say that Mary Kay Bowman was the head of payments at Square and not head of product)

(Reporting by Mary Ann Alapatt in Bengaluru; Editing by Shailesh Kuber)