Visa’s tokenisation efforts are bearing fruit after it was announced today (4 June) at Money 20/20 Europe that the global payments service has issued its 10 billionth token.
This major landmark represented $40bn worth of retail commerce generated and also $650m worth of fraud prevented for merchants within the last year.
Visa tokens, known as Visa Network Tokens, enables a user or merchant to tokenise the 16-digit code of a card number. Launched 10 years ago, the announcement represents Visa’s commitment in leading the tokenisation process that has continued to grow over the past several years.
A Visa spokesperson stated: “We launched Network Tokens around 10 years ago, with a mission to secure commerce and to enable our partners to empower their consumers with great digital payment services. We’re absolutely thrilled with the combination it’s made.”
With an ability to drive commerce sales immersion and a seamless payment experience, tokens are unique to a merchants wallet. Issues and users aim to provide an added layer of security as tokens can only be used by the user who performed the tokenisation.
The Visa Token Service (VTS) has been at the forefront of the payment giants’ tokenisation efforts. The platform allows merchants to increase authorisation and loyalty rewards during the checkout process.
Tokens are also always attached to that 16-digit card number and as long as the card is active, the token will never expire or run out of date, removing fears over questions regarding expiration dates.
The seamlessness of tokens has been praised by the likes of Visa by being able to be used in digital and physical commerce, enabling merchants to speed up the checkout process and also be used for every other day payments, such as paying at toll booths to reduce traffic congestion.
Continuing on its tokenisation push, Visa announced Visa Data Tokens during the 2024 Visa Conference in North America, which brings together tokenisation and artificial intelligence (AI) to make the settlement process even quicker and more seamless.
