Visa has announced the planned launch of three new services aimed at addressing key challenges merchants face in today’s financial landscape.
The services – a reimagined Authorize.net, Unified Checkout and the ARIC Risk Hub – aim to enhance payment experiences and fraud protection for businesses of all sizes.
Antony Cahill, President of Value-Added Services at Visa, stated that leveraging new technology to accept payments can be “what sets a business apart” from its competitors.
He added: “With our new services, we’re helping businesses harness data-driven insights, simplify the checkout experience, and fight fraud more effectively than ever.”
The value of data
The first service, a reimagined version of Authorize.net, is designed to help businesses better analyse data and generate meaningful insights. As data becomes increasingly valuable, merchants are relying on it to understand and respond to customer behaviour more effectively.
As the term “reimagined” suggests, Authorize.net is not new to Visa’s ecosystem. The platform is already used by small and medium-sized businesses to process approximately $200bn in annual payments.
What’s new is the technology powering it. Visa has introduced updates, including a more intuitive user interface and dashboard, enhanced AI capabilities and expanded support for in-person card readers and Tap to Phone, a fast-growing payment method.
The increase in payment methods
The second addition, Unified Checkout, is aimed at helping merchants reduce missed sales by offering a broader range of payment options. In today’s payment landscape, there is an emphasis on offering consumers more choice, including how they pay.
While traditional debit and credit cards still dominate, as shown in UK Finance’s 2024 card transaction data, alternative payment methods are rapidly gaining traction. Visa’s Unified Checkout aims to meet this change by supporting over 25 card and alternative payment types.
Rising fraud levels
The third service, ARIC Risk Hub, is the result of Visa’s acquisition of Featurespace. This AI-driven platform is designed to tackle increasing levels of fraud by identifying high-risk transactions and building behavioral profiles around legitimate customer activity.
“At Visa, we talk a lot about unleashing the creativity of commerce – in other words, how do we support retailers, marketplaces and shops to launch new products, enter emerging markets, and grow,” said Rob Cameron, Global Head of Acceptance Solutions at Visa.
“These new services were built with exactly that in mind: they’re designed to make life easier for businesses, freeing them up to do what they do best.”
