No more updating card details: Visa rolls out tokens online

New digital payments technology from Visa is set to significantly reduce ecommerce fraud, while removing a major consumer pain point – updating your details online every time you get a new card.

The technology, called credential-on-file (COF) tokenisation, means that card details such as the 16-digit account numbers and expiry dates will no longer be stored online when consumers make a purchase. Instead, COF removes sensitive information from merchants’ systems and replaces it with a token, which is meaningless if stolen by fraudsters.

Visa’s head of digital product and partnerships for Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific, Matt Wood, told The Australian Financial Review the tokens would be linked directly to a consumer’s card, so even if it gets lost or stolen and a new one needs to be issued, the consumer will not need to change their details when shopping online, nor update direct debit details.

“We see this as a foundational step for the future of innovation in payments,” he said.

“Like in a physical retail environment where they rely on point-of-sale systems providers to take payments, the same situation exists in ecommerce. Gateway providers give connectivity to the payments ecosystem and also provide the security in terms of protecting card numbers. With tokenisation, the gateways will integrate directly into Visa’s token services.

“If there’s a hack or a breach that takes place, what’s harvested will be effectively worthless.”

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Source: No more updating card details: Visa rolls out tokens online | afr.com