Visa Inc. launches Mobile Location Service to improve card payment experience when traveling

New service uses real-time, geo-location technology to prevent unnecessary purchase declines by as much as 30%*

By matching the location of the cardholder through a cell phone or other mobile device, to the location of the purchase, Visa’s new service will enable banks to feel more confident about authorizing a transaction that might otherwise have been declined due to suspicion of fraud.

According to Visa estimates, issuing financial institutions spend hundreds of millions of dollars annually to manage customer service calls related to pre-travel requests and to research declined transactions. By providing financial institutions greater intelligence when approving transactions, Visa expects to reduce such declines by as much as 30 percent, impacting millions of transactions annually and improving the experience for cardholders, merchants and financial institutions.

Mark Nelsen, SVP, risk products and business intelligence, Visa, says: „Through Visa’s Mobile Location Confirmation service, we’re enabling more precise fraud monitoring, which creates a better payment experience for travelers, assists merchants and reduces unnecessary operational costs for financial institutions.”

How it works
Mobile Location Confirmation is an optional service for consumers that will be offered through participating financial institutions’ mobile banking applications. The service uses mobile geo-location data in real time as an additional input into Visa’s predictive fraud analytics. Finsphere Corporation, a leader in the use of mobile data and geo-spatial analysis, provides Visa an analysis of the account holder’s device location data, which is then matched with the transaction location in less than a millisecond, right at the point of sale. When a cardholder’s mobile device is in the same location as the payment transaction, the issuing financial institution can more confidently approve the transaction.

How consumers enroll
To enroll in the service, cardholders download their card-issuing financial institution’s mobile banking app and agree to the use of their mobile location information for fraud prevention purposes. Consumers receive the benefit of the service when traveling by ensuring their phone is periodically connected to a mobile or Wi-fi network, and can deactivate the service at any time.
Available to U.S. card-issuing financial institutions in April 2015, Mobile Location Confirmation is another innovation from Visa designed to provide issuing financial institutions with more information to help protect against fraud while facilitating a better payment experience for consumers.

* Estimates will vary based on issuer adoption of the service, cardholder adoption and approval decision