Visa International appoints international consumer banking expert to lead Middle East region

Mr Siddiqi joins Visa as Middle East General Manager from ANZ Banking Group, where he was Managing Director for Emerging Business, based in Melbourne, Australia. During his three years at ANZ, Mr Siddiqi led the Domestic credit cards and International Consumer Finance businesses.

The new appointment comes as former Middle East General Manager and Senior Vice President at Visa International CEMEA, Peter Scriven, leaves Visa to launch his own strategic management consultancy practice in the Gulf region, which will initially focus on the retail-banking sector.

"Visa's growth in the Middle East region has surpassed 400 percent in the past four years. This is an exciting time to be joining the world's leading payments association and to take up the challenge and sustain this growth trend," said Siddiqi.

With a total of 70 member banks across the region and more than 7.9 million Visa credit and Visa Electron cardholders, the brand is firmly entrenched as the market leader in all key markets in the Middle East.

"Visa dominates the payments sector across the region and our mission now is to promote greater card usage and enhance our strong partnerships with member banks, merchants and our cardholders," Siddiqi said.

"Peter has led a formidable drive to build the Visa brand across our market and he has created a powerful team of professionals. I look forward to working with the Middle East team to build upon Visa's success in offering local consumers the most convenient, effective and secure payments system," he said.

Commenting on his new venture, Scriven said: "I have thoroughly enjoyed the past eight years and am immensely proud to have been part of building the Visa brand into the market leader that it is today. I would like to wish Kamran Siddiqi and Visa International continuing success in the exciting times which lie ahead in the Middle East card payments market.

"At the same time, I am very excited about my new challenge and to be able to retain my consultancy links with the region's retail banking sector."

Scriven joined Visa International in 1990 as Senior Vice President for Business Development in the UK and Ireland.

In 1994 Scriven was appointed Senior Vice President responsible for Business Development in the Middle East and Africa. This was followed in 1996 with the establishment of the Middle East Regional Office in Dubai. Since then, he has been responsible for Visa's business in the Gulf and Levant region, which has experienced an extraordinary growth of over 400% over the past four years.

Prior to joining ANZ, Mr Siddiqi worked for Citibank across Asia Pacific, including in Singapore, Thailand and Pakistan in the areas of corporate and retail banking, with particular responsibility for the consumer card businesses. Mr Siddiqi has an MBA from the Asian Institute of Management in Manila.