Visa Enables Internet-Connected Devices to Become Secure Commerce Vehicles

07/31/2014

New Tokenisation Services Will Strengthen Payment Security and Spur Commerce Innovation

Sydney - Visa, the global leader in payments, today announced the creation of Visa Digital Solutions, a comprehensive suite of offerings that facilitate secure payments across a broad range of Internet-connected devices and wearables.

“Online and mobile commerce are experiencing incredibly rapid growth and this region has continually had one of the greatest adoption rates of smartphones in the world,” said George Lawson, Head of Emerging Products & Innovation at Visa in Australia.

“Our research shows Australians still use their PC as their primary online shopping device but mobile shopping is quickly catching up, especially among younger users,” he said.

Visa Digital Solutions provides the standards, tools and services to turn any Internet-connected device into a secure vehicle for commerce. Smartphone manufacturers can securely load a Visa account within a device, merchants can directly embed Visa payment functionality into their mobile apps and financial institutions can offer mobile and online payments as part of their mobile banking applications.

Visa Digital Solutions fall into two main categories:

1. Support for New Payment Methods
Making a purchase with a mobile device at a physical retailer or online will quickly become commonplace, particularly in countries like Australia with a high penetration of smartphones. Visa is extending its support for mobile payments to enable financial institutions, merchants and developers to create new ways to pay via smartphones.

• Wave-to-pay: Visa recently published a software development kit (SDK) to make it easier for merchants, financial institutions and application developers to embed Visa payWave, Visa’s mobile payment technology, into their mobile applications. Issuers now have the option to host the Visa account information in a virtual cloud or in a secure chip on the mobile device. According to Lawson, “Visa payWave now represents 47 per cent of all face-to-face Visa transactions in Australia and all the conditions exist to enable a mass shift to mobile payments and simplified remote payments.”

• Scan-to-pay: In June Visa published an initial specification for presenting Visa account information in the form of a Quick Response (QR) code. The specification provides retailers with a new, secure option to accept a Visa payment by simply scanning a QR code on a smartphone screen.

• Click-to-pay: Last week Visa announced the launch of Visa Checkout, a quick and easy payment service that enables Australian consumers to pay for goods online, on any device, in just a few clicks. Visa’s application programming interfaces (APIs) for Visa Checkout are available to merchant developers, as well as SDKs for in-app payments.

2. Technology That Protects Consumers and Supports Industry Innovation
As the number of online and mobile transactions has increased, so has the need to protect consumer payment account information. In September, Visa will introduce an innovative tokenisation service in the United States that strengthens payment security while facilitating industry innovation. Tokenisation will follow in Australia from late 2015. The new Visa

Token Service enables:

• Consumer Protection: Tokens replace the 16-digit account information found on plastic cards with a numeric substitute, facilitating payment transactions without sharing sensitive account information.

• Industry Innovation: Tokens can be stored directly in mobile devices, online eCommerce applications and cloud-based mobile applications, which will spur new commerce experiences.

• Restricted Use: Tokens can be limited for use with specific merchants, mobile devices or types of purchases.

• Convenience and Cost Effectiveness: Tokens linked to lost or stolen mobile devices can be instantly reissued without changing account numbers or reissuing plastic cards.

• Easy Processing: Tokens are based on existing ISO standards and can therefore be processed and routed by merchants, acquirers and issuers like traditional card payments.

Many offerings within the Visa Digital Solutions suite are available today, with the full range of capabilities expected to be commercially available throughout 2015. Visa Digital Solutions will initially be available through the Visa Ready program, which provides innovators a path for the certification of devices, software and solutions used to initiate or accept Visa payments. Visa will also launch an extended Developer Centre in early 2015, providing product specifications, APIs, SDKs, as well as implementation guidelines for financial institutions, merchants and third-party payment providers. For more information please visit Visa Ready.

 

About Visa
Visa is a global payments technology company that connects consumers, businesses, financial institutions, and governments in more than 200 countries and territories to fast, secure and reliable electronic payments. We operate one of the world’s most advanced processing networks — VisaNet — that is capable of handling more than 47,000 transaction messages a second, with fraud protection for consumers and assured payment for merchants. Visa is not a bank and does not issue cards, extend credit or set rates and fees for consumers. Visa’s innovations, however, enable its financial institution customers to offer consumers more choices: pay now with debit, ahead of time with prepaid or later with credit products.

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Teneille Rennick
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