Mobile payments may steadily gain momentum, but digital transactions still have significant growth potential. As the saying goes in an interview with Kon the sidelines of the 8th Delphic Forum, h Bea Laregle, head of the southern European region of the multinational financial group Visaone of the advantages of digital payments is associated with urban mobility and access to transport without a paper ticket.

“In recent years, we have seen a shift towards digital payments, especially after the rise of e-commerce and contactless payments during the pandemic. In Europe, more than 8 out of 10 Visa transactions are now contactless. In Greece, 96% of these transactions are contactless, with the shift towards card payments increasing. As contactless payments become the norm, the next big step will be the widespread adoption of mobile payments. Despite such significant growth, the penetration of digital payments in Greece is still low.

– Two interesting developments that I think are worth paying attention to are urban mobility and tokens. Starting with urban mobility, digital payments today mark the connection between different modes of transport, removing barriers and facilitating fast and secure access to, for example, public transport for millions of citizens, as well as tourists, facilitating their travel without using a physical ticket. To date, Visa has implemented (digital payments) in over 650 cities around the world, recording over 1 billion tap to ride transactions in 2022, while we are also working to bring contactless cards into the urban mobility network in Greece.

It is estimated that by 2030 the regenerative economy model will be worth 900 billion euros.

Another interesting example is the tokenization (note: the process of replacing sensitive data with a randomly selected and unique series of characters – tokens) of cards for e-commerce or mobile phone transactions. It was designed to hide and replace sensitive data, making digital payments more secure. For small business owners, tokenization is another layer of customer protection. Last year, we issued over 4 billion tokens worldwide, exceeding our company’s total physical cards in circulation.

“The world is consuming more than it can replenish, and the way we use natural resources must be radically changed. Part of this problem can be solved by moving from a linear “take, make and throw away” economy to a circular economy in which products are rented out, resold, repaired, returned, refilled or redistributed to reduce waste and, collectively, CO2 emissions. We call this model recommerce. The regenerative economy, including its applications such as recommerce, is valued at 900 billion euros by 2030, with the potential to attract new customers and new payment streams. According to a study by research firm Opinium for Visa, 87% of European citizens have participated in at least one retrade event, but most say they don’t know much about it. That’s why we decided to launch Recommerce to help people and businesses learn more about it.

“Safety is at the heart of everything we do. Thanks to these efforts, the level of fraud in our network in Europe has been decreasing in recent years. However, the growing volumes of digital transactions do not make us calm down.

Our approach focuses on three key elements. First, it is the creation and maintenance of a reliable and fault-tolerant infrastructure that runs smoothly every minute of the day. The second pillar is the protection of this infrastructure using artificial intelligence and advanced data analytics for real-time fraud detection. More than 1,000 cybersecurity experts around the world make up the Cybersecurity Connectivity Centers, deployed on three continents, and provide continuous cybersecurity surveillance and risk response. Last but not least, using the latest technology to detect and prevent online fraud, adding an extra layer of protection and support. Over the past five years, we have invested more than 9 billion euros in technologies around the world to reduce fraud and improve network security. Last year alone, we pre-blocked 122 million transactions worth $7.2 billion in suspicious payment attempts before they affected customers, with an overall fraud rate of less than 0.1% of transactions in our network, one of the highest low rates among all forms. payment.