Visa has created more than 500 million payment tokens on its network in India since 2022, reflecting the rapid adoption of card tokenisation as consumers and merchants increasingly turn to more secure digital payments, said Vipin Surelia, Vice President and Head of Risk Services, India and South Asia. 

Globally, to date, Visa has provisioned over 17.5 billion tokens, which enhance security by replacing card numbers with a unique digital token. Card tokenisation replaces a card’s 16-digit number with a unique digital token, ensuring that merchants do not store customers’ actual card details.

According to Surelia, this has significantly reduced the usefulness of stolen card data for fraudsters while strengthening consumer confidence in digital payments. “Even if fraudsters get hold of the data, it is of no use to them,” he said, adding that tokenisation has helped contain the impact of data breaches by ensuring that compromised payment information cannot be misused.

Surelia said the number of tokens continues to grow as more consumers save their cards across online merchants. Besides improving security, tokenisation has also enhanced convenience by eliminating the need for customers to repeatedly enter their card details while making online purchases.

Merchants, too, have benefited as they no longer store sensitive card information, reducing their exposure to cyberattacks and data breaches.

While tokenisation has made card payments more secure, fraudsters continue to evolve their methods by targeting consumers through increasingly sophisticated scams, Surelia said. Artificial intelligence has emerged as a dual-use technology, enabling financial institutions to strengthen fraud detection while also allowing cybercriminals to scale and personalise attacks. 

“The best way to fight bad AI is through better AI,” he said, adding that Visa is investing heavily in AI-driven fraud detection capabilities.

The company in 2024 acquired AI-based payments protection firm Featurespace to strengthen fraud prevention across cards as well as account-to-account payment systems, including real-time payments.

Surelia said Visa continues to invest significantly in cybersecurity, with more than 1,500 cyber engineers working to secure its network globally. Over last five years, Visa has invested $13 billion in technology and infrastructureand is also developing new AI-powered tools to help clients identify vulnerabilities and counter emerging cyber threats.