Visa launches digital identity platform

Visa has announced details of new digital products that are being prepared to launch as part of Visa B2B Connect in the first quarter of 2019.

This platform, powered by distributed ledger technology, is designed to provide financial institutions with a simple, fast and secure way to process cross-border payments between businesses. B2B Connect's digital identity feature tokenizes a company's critical information (bank details, account numbers) and provides it with a unique identifier that can be used to conduct transactions on the platform.

"Using B2B Connect, we are developing new ways for businesses to make large cross-border payments," said Kevin Phalen, Head of Visa Business Solutions. “B2B Connect will process payments for institutions in the logistics, banking, trade, etc. industries.”

In preparation for commercial launch next year, Visa is expanding partnerships to add additional features to its platform. The company has been cooperating with technology giant IBM for 40 years, together these corporations plan to attract common institutional clients and expand the list of services provided. 

“When leaders in payments and financial services technology work together using open source technologies, the entire digital industry benefits,” said Jason Kelly, general manager of IBM Blockchain Services.

Last week, Visa also announced the commercial expansion of the Visa Token Service for token partners that store card data (credential on-fle/COF). According to the company, this step is key to achieving complete digital payment security.

With this expansion, acquirers and technology partners including Adyen, AsiaPay, Braintree, Checkout.com, Cherri Tech, CyberSource, Elavon, Ezidebit, eWAY, Fit-Pay, Giesecke & Devrient, PayPal, Payscout, Rambus, SafeCharge, SecureCo, Square, Stripe, Worldpay and YellowPepper will be able to tokenize digital payments that use payment card data. 

According to fstech.co.uk