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(UPDATE: Visa Inc. on Monday announced global head of product Elizabeth Buse has been named group executive for the Asia-Pacific and CEMEA regions, replacing Rupert Keeley, who is leaving the company. It confirms the NFC Times story below, published over the weekend.) 

Visa Inc.'s global head of product, Elizabeth Buse, will be named Visa’s group president for the Asia-Pacific and CEMEA regions, NFC Times has learned.

Buse, who has served in her current role since late 2007, will replace Rupert Keeley, who is retiring as group president, sources said. An announcement is expected soon.

There was no word yet on whom might replace her.

Buse’s planned departure as global head of product and her promotion to group president would be only the latest personnel shift that has come to light affecting Visa’s emerging-payment initiatives, though payment innovation was not considered one of Buse's strong areas of focus personally.

As NFC Times reported last week, Tim Attinger, who reports to Buse as global head of product innovation, is expected to leave Visa. And the card network announced last month it is hiring mobile industry executive Bill Gajda as its new head of mobile. He plans to start work in April and was to report directly to Buse.

It’s a critical time for the innovation unit at Visa, the world’s largest payment-card network, as it seeks to ward off threats, especially in the mobile sphere. U.S. mobile operators, for example, are considering launching payment services that could compete directly with Visa and other large card schemes.

Visa is also planning to introduce a major initiative on the Internet called Visa Right Click, which is an enhanced e-wallet that can centralize Web offers. It's expected that consumers also would be able to use it on phones. Visa is expected to announce the initiative soon, probably with a big development partner. The global head of product would have oversight of this program.

During her tenure as head of product, Buse lent well-placed support to Visa's debit products and also backed prepaid. But some observers were hard-pressed to name accomplishments in innovation. For example, her project Visa Extras, a rewards program started when she was executive vice president for product development and management for Visa’s USA region, did not perform well. Besides product strategy and development, Buse as head of product oversees debit processing and is responsible for interoperability of Visa’s products and services.

(Update: Visa CEO Joseph Saunders in a statement as part of Monday's announcement said that under Buse's leadership, "Visa has globalized our e-commerce, money transfer and mobile efforts" and "also has been a driving force behind our core debit, prepaid, commercial and credit card businesses and other critical product innovations." Starting April 1, she will be based in Singapore as head of the Asia-Pacific and CEMEA, or Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa, regions.)

Before being named global head of product, Buse was executive vice president for product development and management at Visa’s USA reportedly from January 2002 until October 2007. Prior to that, she served as vice president for strategic initiatives for the electronic funds division of First Data Corp.

Keeley has served as group president for the two regions only since July 2009, although he was regional president for Asia-Pacific, between May 2000 and September 2008, overseeing growth in market share. He served as global head of strategy and corporate development from September 2008 until July 2009.