Visa is looking to lend a helping hand to acquiring banks as they try to keep up with challenges around agentic commerce and stablecoins.
Visa has launched Visa Intelligent Authorisation as concerns around legacy systems in banking become more prominent.
In a statement on 10 March, Visa unveiled the newest addition to its Visa Acceptance Platform, a cloud-based technology suite which connects merchants and payment service providers to a global network.
According to the payments giant, the capability aims to modernise payment processing for acquirers through a single API connection, which it says will remove the need for full infrastructure rebuilds.
Visa says a major issue in the payments lifecycle currently sits on the acquiring side of card payments. While banks can approve or decline authorisation requests in seconds, legacy systems often struggle with transaction volumes and increasing data complexity.
The new tool uses machine learning to analyse transaction data in real time and enhance routing decisions based on network rules, regional regulations and industry programmes.
Visa explained the platform can either act as an acquirer’s main processor or extend existing capabilities, boasting it delivers 99.999% uptime and an average approval rate of 96.3% globally.
Legacy systems are still a problem
It is common to hear payments professionals point to legacy systems as a major barrier to innovation.
This infrastructure is also one of the key reasons neobanks have seen strong success. Starling Bank has positioned Engine by Starling as a modern, API-first alternative to traditional banks which remain burdened by legacy, monolithic and batch-processing systems.
A recent example came in September 2025 when Starling appointed Jody Bhagat as its President and revealed plans to invest up to $50m in expanding its North American footprint. Following his appointment, one of the first competitive advantages Bhagat highlighted was the bank’s technology.
“The North American market is highly competitive, and many banks and credit unions feel constrained by legacy technology,” Bhagat said at the time.
Visa has placed further emphasis on the challenges created by legacy systems with this latest launch.
“We’re entering a new era of commerce, where AI agents can act on behalf of consumers, stablecoins are reshaping settlement, and digital wallets are becoming the primary interface for payments,” said Axel Boye-Moller, Head of Value-Added Services, Asia Pacific at Visa.
“The opportunity is significant. But much of today’s infrastructure was built for a different generation of transactions.”
Looking at real world data, the payments giant highlighted Visa-commissioned research conducted by YouGov, which found across Asia Pacific 74% of consumers already use AI-powered tools as part of their shopping journey.
The firm says this change is increasing the speed, frequency and data intensity of transactions, which in turn is exposing the limitations of legacy authorisation infrastructure.
“Visa Intelligent Authorization is designed for this shift, delivering smarter decisioning across networks through a single integration. It is built for what’s happening now, and what’s coming next,” Boye-Moller said.
Influencing business decisions
Legacy systems are not only creating operational challenges for acquirers and serving as a competitive advantage for fintechs, but are also becoming a factor in acquisition strategies.
In recent years there has been a growing trend of fintech companies acquiring banks to obtain a banking licence.
A recent example was announced on 8 January, when Zilch revealed plans to acquire Fjord Bank. The deal will enable the company to passport its credit and payments services across multiple countries more efficiently while expanding its product offering.
A Zilch spokesperson told Payment Expert the company has always held a credit lending licence and wanted to replicate this model in Europe. However, regulatory credit licences are not passportable, meaning applications must be submitted individually in each country.
When making the decision, the spokesperson said finding a bank without legacy issues was a key requirement.
“Leaving us the challenge of finding a bank with a similar customer centric vision, a bank without legacy issues, that was digital and with talented people, and we have found that in Fjord. These key elements are what made the transaction so attractive to us,” said the spokesperson.
