Visa Europe has announced a new tokenization service thatwill be specifically created for the European marketplace in mid-April in amove that will allow European banks to roll out of Apple Pay across the continent.According to the card network, the new tokenization service which is at theheart of Apple Pay will allow banks to replace the traditional 16-digit Visaaccount number with a unique series of numbers that helps protect sensitiveconsumer personal and financial information.
In addition to the new tokenization service, Visa Europe hasannounced a new service that will serve as a global peer-to-peer (P2P) paymentservice enabling fast cash transfers between card holders via the use of amobile phone number or Visa card number. According to the network, the new VisaDirect service replaces an existing P2P protocol, Visa Personal Payments whichhad 200,000 users across Europe and saw a transaction volume of approximately€43 million ($48.6 million) since its launch in March 2013.
With mobile payments the top industry buzzword today, themove by Visa Europe is not surprising especially since Apple is looking tolaunch its mobile payment service in Europe in the coming months. While the tokenizationservice is noteworthy, the P2P service is even more interesting given recent initiativesacross Europe like the UK’s Paym
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Overview by Tristan Hugo-Webb, Associate Director, Global Payments, forMercator Advisory Group
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