Visa provisions over 100 million card-on-files tokens in India

Visa the global leader in digital payments, announced its successful provisioning of 100 million CoF (card-on-file) tokens in India. This landmark has been achieved in line with RBI’s guidelines on CoF tokenisation, focusing on two key benefits – consumer & ecosystem security and an enhanced checkout experience. 

Commenting on the announcement, Sandeep Ghosh, Group Country Manager India & South Asia, Visa said “RBI’s move to allow CoF tokenisation has truly revolutionized digital payments across India’s e-commerce platforms. We have always prioritised providing security-focused tailored payment solutions to customers. In recent months, Visa has worked closely with our banking partners and merchants to drive consumer awareness as well as technology enablement for seamless adoption of card tokenisation.”

He further added, “Our teams have been in active engagement with all our ecosystem partners to help solve implementation challenges. Meanwhile, tokenised transactions have seen significant adoption across merchants, clocking 4.5X growth over the past two months. We expect this momentum to continue in the coming months as the ecosystem migrates to tokenised payments.”

RBI’s CoF tokenisation guidelines mandate replacing actual card data with encrypted digital tokens, which are then used to facilitate and authenticate transactions. This devaluation of sensitive card details alleviates risk and vulnerability of sensitive data, as only tokens are present in transit, across the ‘in-rest’ and ‘in-use’ phases.

The guidelines are expected to enhance consumer trust in ecommerce payments, ensure seamless transactions and give card issuers the confidence to authorise a higher number of transactions. As a market leader in digital payments, Visa has been driving the adoption of this capability to further strengthen payment safety in the ecosystem.