Frankfurt: Visa Europe said on Tuesday it would offer a secure way for consumers to pay retailers with their smartphones while concealing credit card details, a move that could set the stage for Apple`s Apple Pay and rival payment services to be introduced into Europe in coming months.
Visa Europe said it would introduce to member banks by mid-April a "tokenisation" service, a technique which substitutes random numbers for a user`s credit card number when a merchant transmits transaction data, reducing the risk of online theft.
New token-based security from Visa Inc, a partner of Visa Europe, and rival card issuers MasterCard and American Express were considered by many experts to be a critical security enabler when Apple Pay was introduced in the United States last year.
The announcement is just one of several new payment services the London-based credit card giant is unveiling. These include a way for card customers to send money overseas to other Visa users via social media profiles on Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter or LinkedIn.
