Visa announced this week that it is bringing its global tokenization service to the Indian Region. Launched in conjunction with Juspay Technologies, a leading payment processor serving the Indian market, this will be India’s first tokenization service for card-on-flie (CoF) merchants. The Reserve bank of India (RBI) recently updated their circular on tokenization requirements to all tokenization of CoF payments for eCommerce merchants.
“The RBI’s move to allow CoF tokenization for ecommerce payments will revolutionize digital payments across India’s ecommerce platforms,” said TR Ramachandran, Group Country Manager, India and South Asia, Visa. “Having launched CoF tokenization services in over 130 countries globally, we are confident of the technology’s ability to build a safe, secure and seamless environment for digital payments.”
Tokenization uses algorithms to create “tokens” that are stored in place of actual payment card credentials. The token can only be restored to the actual account number using the formulas within the token vault at Visa. Merchants use tokens to store payment data for CoF transactions, creating convenience and utility for consumers without worry that a data breach would expose customers’ payment card credentials. Tokenization has been a hot topic in India this year after a cyberattack on Juspay in August 2020 exposed data from 35 million consumers.
Overview by Don Apgar, Director, Merchant Services Advisory Practice at Mercator Advisory Group
