Visa acquisition adds new level of digital commerce security

Visa’s new acquisition promises consumers more digital security when making payments on their laptop, mobile app, or connected device.



Visa is acquiring e-commerce payment authentication provider CardinalCommerce, a move that will enable the card issuer to deliver shoppers more secure, seamless digital payments, and help accelerate digital commerce. While Visa did not disclose financial terms of the transaction, the deal is expected to close in Visa’s second fiscal quarter 2017.



“By helping merchants, acquirers, and issuers better distinguish between good and bad transactions, Visa is in an even better position to strengthen consumer trust in digital payments, help merchants grow their businesses, and accelerate innovation in commerce,” said Mark Nelsen, senior VP of risk and authentication products at Visa.



Visa already provides Cardinal’s services to merchants and acquirers through its CyberSource merchant and acquirer enablement platform. Additionally, Visa will draw upon its global relationships and presence to drive international expansion of Cardinal’s products and services.



As Visa plans to integrate tokenization into Visa Checkout over the next 18 months, the addition of Cardinal will allow more seamless integration of the 3-D Secure standard, an industry benchmark that expands the scope and quality of real-time predictive risk scoring for both merchants and issuers. It also provides more seamless online payment experiences for consumers, and accommodates new devices and ways to pay. The merger will also streamline the de-livery of new fraud mitigation capabilities to merchants.



Cardinal will continue to operate and serve its existing clients as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Visa, and its authentication platform will continue to support a broad range of payment brands and partners across the industry. Co-founders Tim Sherwin and Chandra Balasubramanian will continue to head up the Cardinal team, based in Mentor, Ohio.