Visa Token Service Drives $2 Billion Uplift in Digital Economy

Asia Pacific's digital economy experienced an uplift of more than USD2 billion^[1] in 2023 as a result of Visa Token Service (VTS) adoption, Visa announced today. This achievement underscores the powerful value that tokens bring to digital commerce, both in-store and online, as the number of tokens reached the 1 billion^[2] milestone in Asia Pacific.

VTS replaces the 16-digit debit or credit card number with a unique identifier called a token that only Visa can unlock. Visa tokens secure the payment credential, enabling the transfer of enhanced data, which can help to improve payment success rates and lower fraud rates. These benefits, coupled with ease of use across devices, lead to an improved consumer experience.

Enhanced Transaction Security

Tokens can also improve payment processing by enabling greater control and enriching data exchange for each transaction. These improvements have reduced cases where legitimate transactions are declined by payment systems – an experience that can be frustrating for consumers and merchants. Merchants who have adopted VTS for their digital payments have experienced a higher payment success rate or authorisation uplift of USD2 billion while payment fraud rates are reduced by more than half (58%)^[3].

"Consumers and businesses alike expect payments to be secure and seamless and network tokens are the enabler. With the authorisation uplift and lowered fraud rates, merchants can focus more of their valuable time and resources on product innovation and customer engagement. We encourage more merchants to adopt tokenised payments as this technology can make a direct impact to their top and bottom lines," said Previn Pillay, Head of Merchant Sales & Acquiring, Asia Pacific, Visa.

Visa is also expanding the modern payment experiences that tokenised credentials can bring to online environments. With tokens, consumers no longer need to manually key in their 16-digit credentials when paying online, or deal with the hassle of updating their card details across multiple platforms when the card expires or needs to be replaced. Similarly, VTS ensures that merchants can update their customers' payment information securely through Visa's platform, in turn offering these customers seamless, uninterrupted payments with lower incidences of authorisation declines, whether paying through a smartphone, wearable, or smart appliance.

"Tokens pave the way for the future of commerce as the innovation possibilities are immense with tokenised payment credentials that can unlock new and more personalised consumer experiences beyond physical Visa cards. We continue to build on the capabilities that modern credentials offer, together with our partners, to bring more value to the entire payment ecosystem," said TR Ramachandran, Head of Products and Solutions, Asia Pacific, Visa.

To learn more about how Visa is leading the Token transformation, visit here.