Visa Europe has announced a new, more secure way for consumers to pay retailers via smartphones, a move that could set the stage for Apple's Apple Pay and rival payment services to be introduced into Europe in the coming months.
Visa Europe said on Tuesday it would introduce to member banks by mid-April a "tokenisation" service, a technique which substitutes random numbers for a user's credit card number when a merchant transmits transaction data, reducing the risk of online theft. New token-based security from Visa Inc, the former parent of Visa Europe, and rival card issuers MasterCard and American Express was considered by many experts to be a critical security enabler when Apple Pay was introduced in the United States last year.
The announcement is just one of several new payment services the London-based credit card giant is unveiling.
These include a way for card customers to send money overseas to other Visa users via their social media profiles on sites such as Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter or LinkedIn. Visa Inc, now a partner of Visa Europe, announced its own tokenisation service that went live in September, the same month as Apple introduced Apple Pay in the United States. In October, Apple Pay was released with support from top U.S. banks, card issuers but resistance from some major U.S. retailers.
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