Visa: Tokenisation Will Reduce Fraud in Digital Payments 

Emma Okonji

In order to address the rising rate of online fraud in sub-Saharan Africa, Nigeria inclusive, occasioned by the massive shift to digital payment post COVID-19, Visa, a payment solution provider has said it would continue to partner with merchants, organisations and institutions to provide technology solutions that would reduce fraud in digital payments. 

Senior Director and Head of Risk, sub-Saharan Africa at Visa, Irene Auma, who gave the assurance at a recent virtual conference with the theme: ‘Securing the Future of Digital Payment in sub-Saharan Africa’, said there had been a massive shift from non-card transactions to digital transactions through the use of cards.

“In Q1 2021, before lockdown and the active pandemic stage happened, the contactless rate in payments was 42 per cent. In nine months, it increased up to 60 per cent and maintained growth after that. Visa’s intervention at the beginning of the pandemic, helped to reduce fraud rate growth, which kept the contactless fraud rate at its lowest level,” Auma said.

She said the massive shift led to increased attacks in online transactions, where the cybercrime community started actively attacking businesses through ransomware. Sophisticated attacks and digital scheming have led to rise in digital threats in sub Saharan Africa,” Auma said. 

In 2020 throughout the pandemic, the UAE experienced a 250 per cent increase in cyber-attacks, which included 1.1 million phishing attacks, the most popular technique for carrying out cyber attacks, she further said, but assured consumers of a secured digital ecosystem in sub-Saharan Africa. 

According to her, Visa, on its part, has been working with partners to secure the ecosystem, and helping consumers to adopt digital payment in order to get better transaction experience within the digital payment space. 

“Visa is doing so much to ensure safety of consumers’ online transactions by introducing new ways of verifying and authenticating the customers through the support of digital-based authentication that will make it possible to identify who the real customer is at any given transaction,” Auma said.