Visa has announced that Ryan McInerney will become the company’s new chief executive in February.

McInerney, who will take over from Alfred F. Kelly, Jr, has held the role of president of Visa for nearly 10 years.

Kelly has been chief exec of the business since 2016 and chairman for three years. He will become executive chairman of the board when he steps down next year.

“I cannot think of a finer leader to continue to position Visa at the center of money movement in increasingly innovative ways,” said current chief executive Alfred F Kelly, Jr. “Ryan has boundless energy and passion for this business and in his role as President, and as my close partner for the past six years, he has become intimately familiar with how Visa operates and the exciting opportunities this industry presents."

Kelly continued: "I feel privileged to entrust Ryan with the leadership of this great company and am confident Visa is poised for more success in the years to come.”

Earlier this year Visa issued more than 4 billion network tokens, surpassing the number of physical cards in circulation worldwide.

The payments giant said that the tokens, which are issued through its Visa Token Service (VTS) are aimed at securing digital payments and accelerating e-commerce innovation and acceptance.

In a tokenised transaction, the customer’s 16-digit card number is replaced by a digital token which only Visa can unlock, which protects the underlying account information.

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