Visa's tokenization began as a way to shield digital commerce and has developed into a major catalyst for Visa in landing partnerships.
The card network's five year old Token Service has added 11 European partners, including Adyen, Cardstream, Computop, Datatrans, HiPay, Ingenico/Bambora, Monext, Safecharge, Secure Trading, Wirecard and Worldline.
Merchants who integrate with Visa Token Service through these new partners do not need to wait for individual certification approval and can quickly launch their token-on-file initiative.
In the past, the Visa Token Service has helped the card brand land
In addition to enhancing security, the service also allows a financial institution to update expired or compromised payment credentials in the background during a transaction, eliminating a significant point of friction for consumers and merchants.
The Visa Token Service is built on top of the EMVCo Payment Tokenization Standard, which is supported by the card brands that make up EMVCo. It replaces Visa payment card numbers with a token unique to the merchant or gateway acquirer partner.
In addition, tokens can be restricted to work only with a specific merchant, adding another layer of security to digital payments. For consumers, this enables a more secure and convenient payment experience, while for merchants it reduces the numbers of declines as the transaction cannot be held up by expired payment credentials.
Other benefits include immediate card updating through the issuer when a card expires; storage of tokens in e-commerce marketplaces for shopping with sub-merchants; the addition of loyalty and value-added services through a common identifier; and advanced security for internet of things commerce used in cars, connected home devices and other products.
As digital payment channels grew for merchants, Visa addressed a need last year in offering
