Visa cardholders will soon be able to opt-in to sharing their data with retailers using novel “data tokens” as Visa looks to remain competitive in an increasingly crowded and digital marketplace.
The tokens, which will be rolled out by Visa and participating banks as early as this year, will enable companies to ask customers for consent to receive personalized offers in real time while shopping, using Generated by artificial intelligence insight into transaction data, Visa announced on Wednesday at the annual Visa Payments Forum in San Francisco.
Banks will also receive a token that shows where customer data has been shared and displays it in the mobile app, so customers can decide whether they want to continue sharing data with a given merchant or revoke access.
“The industry is at an inflection point – novel technologies like generational artificial intelligence are rapidly changing the way we shop and manage our finances,” Jack Forestell, Visa’s chief product and strategy officer, said in a statement.
This move is part of the latest trend towards open banking among card providers and financial institutions. As payments become more interconnected and digitized across spaces, open banking allows users to share transaction data with institutions other than their banks, including retailers. Mastercard, Visa’s biggest competitor, acquired Finicity in November 2020 as part of the entry into the growing practice.
Visa, which has been around since 1958, is also trying to differentiate itself from some of its more newfangled and digitally savvy fintech rivals, such as Stripe and Plaid. The visa is still a world visa largest issuer of credit cardswith 4.3 billion cards worldwide and over 2.9 billion debit cards in circulation worldwide.
On Wednesday, Visa unveiled a litany of novel “truly digital payment card” offerings that Forestell said will “lead consumers into a more personalized, convenient and secure future.”
These include a novel password service that confirms a customer’s identity and authorizes online payments using facial or fingerprint recognition technology, replacing passwords and one-time codes. Forestell said the key will “represent a huge paradigm shift in our industry because it confirms identity without disrupting the checkout process.” It will also add another layer of security to online payments, where the company says fraud reports are seven times higher than for in-person payments.
He also announced the introduction of expanded “tap and pay” options, including the ability to turn any device into a point of sale.
