Visa (V 0.67%) is pushing deeper into the ever-growing digital payments sphere by signing up a raft of global players in that segment to be part of its Visa Token Service. The card giant announced Wednesday that it had added 28 partners for the service, including prominent Russian internet company Yandex's Yandex.Money and other international "gateway" payment service providers.
Once these partners are certified, they will be able to tokenize all transactions effected by and through their clients on Visa cards.
Image source: Visa.
In the world of digital payments, a token is a string of numbers that substitutes for the information stored on a payment card such as the primary account number, expiration date, the cardholder's name, address, etc. Tokens are issued and used so that this sensitive information doesn't have to be exposed or transmitted, thus adding a level of security to card-based transactions.
Visa said in its press release heralding the new partnerships that the enhancement in security that comes with the use of tokens is clear. "We've seen a fraud reduction rate of 26% for digital transactions processed through Visa Token Service compared to traditional online card transactions," it wrote.
According to Visa, 69% of U.S. consumers have had their card information stored securely for tokenization purposes. The company says there has been significant take-up of its Token Service, with over 150 partners signing up for it over the last five years (it launched in 2014).
The company did not provide any estimates for how the new partnerships would impact its business.
Visa shares slipped by just over 1.1% on Wednesday, mirroring the decline of the wider stock market and several other big finance sector companies.
