The history to the name and the use of "via", came out of the idea to operate Dubai as an eHUB between East and West, whereas the name naturally become "via Dubai", you can here see the first graphical image of "VIA DUBAI".

Already 1998 the ViA Groups founder, Lars Olof Kanngard, held a speech in Dubai for the Chamber of Commerce where he presented the idea and concept, to start an eHUB and proposed also that Dubai should start its own electronic currency, and proposed the creation of the d-dollar (Dubai dollar). it was also proposed to use Dubai as an IT hub a connection center between east and west, and thereafter was Dubai Internet City created.

When the shape of ViA as a Business Model Innovation started to take shape, we where advice to not use "Dubai" in our name, instead a name explaining what we offer and what we do."

This is the official registered ViA trademark and the Logo.

The ViA Logo came to be designed by the founder of the ViA Group; Lars Olof Kanngard as a result of giving a graphical description of what the company is doing.

The basic concept around the ViA Model is based on making instant transactions more secure. One of the first security innovations was the STS-Secure Transaction String, which makes data transferred more secure. So the way it works is what ViA does and that's why the ViA logo came to be designed like this:

With just a little of explanations, you quickly will see that what we do is what you see also as a reflection in the designed ViA Logo.

the first "V" is the only correct alphabetic character but it represents an ARROW pointing into ViA, which symbolizes that we bring data or transactions into ViA.

The second part of the ViA Logo is not an "i" it is a number "ONE and a ZERO built together into one character, explaining we process data and it symbolizes IT.

Binary data definition

The third character is an "ARROW OUT" completing the PROCESS where we did bring in the transaction data, processed the data and sent the processed data back-out in a secure and via in a better way!

The animation link, below, will display a short video on how it all works. When the 'dot' over the "i" jumping around, that is all the work we do in thebackground.

The use of the word "VIA" goes back to the middle of 90th, when the founder and his team operated and created some of the first multi-line AUDIOTEX system solutions in the world, which became ESSELTE VOICE where also the legendary system, the MiniVoice system was one of several milestone-innovations, by its team. Everything was related that we did things 'via voice' 'via telephony' so at a later stage when the production of the MiniVoice system came under its own entity the name VIATEL was a natural choice, and that is where the word 'via' came to start in Sweden in the telecom sector.

ViATEL was the first company within the family of 'Kanngard' which got the name 'via' shortly followed by VIP.

The word "VIA" means; "traveling through (a place) en route to a destination." or "by way of; through" and by Latin: "Way, Road.

When the name came to live as the corporate name, we also was trying to agree on a slogan. The different suggestions was:

• ViA the best way !
• ViA the road forward !
• ViA a better way !

To say "the best way" than if someone comes with an improvements, which you may not see today, you would become the "second best way" which is not so good. To say "the road forward" is a good expression, but bring little or no association to make things different or have a new revolutionary concept in your hand. To say "a better way" is perfect and leaves all door open to make improvements and join forces with others, who can contribute to a "better way"

As for all 'card-brand' ViA did need to have its own 'letter' a single character, which preferable, by just looking on it, would give the as so si at ion to the word it should or rather the brand it should represent. So that was how the ViA Single Character was created.

Here you can see the ViA Single Character in action

As you can see, the ViA Single Letter,, truly looks like 'ViA' and we also have developed it into a font.