30. January 2019 – MeaWallet and Axepta BNP Paribas has entered into an agreement to deliver Multi-Scheme EMV® Merchant Tokenization to the Italian market.

Axepta BNP Paribas, is one of the leading payment service providers (PSP) in Italy. As one of the most innovative PSPs in Italy, Axepta BNP Paribas will enable Merchant Tokenization as a new offering to their customers. After a thorough process considering multiple vendors, the Company selected MeaWallet with their Merchant Tokenization Platform as their partner to provide this innovative service to Italian merchants.

Mea Merchant Tokenization connects merchants, PSPs and acquirers to the Mastercard Digital Enablement Service (MDES), the Visa Token Service (VTS) and the American Express Tokenization Service. This way they can benefit from each of the globally interoperable and scalable tokenization platforms through one easy integration.

What is Merchant Tokenization?

The way we pay is changing. Consumers are now using their PC, smartphones, wearable devices and even cars to buy goods and services. To reduce fraud and to enable faster and more secure checkout, the EMV® schemes (Mastercard, Visa, Amex, Discover, JCB & Union Pay) has launched Merchant EMV Tokenization.

Digital payment solutions provider, MeaWallet, launched last year a new payment tokenization solution for Merchant, that delivers Mastercard, Visa and American Express tokenization services through a single connection.

Up till now merchants and PSPs have stored the personal account number (PAN) in a PCI DSS certified solution. In tokenization the PAN is disconnected from the merchant and replaced with a unique identifier called a payment token. The ‘mapping’ between the real PAN and the payment tokens is safely stored in the token vault. The payment tokens for each merchant has a specific Merchant ID, so the token only can be used by the right merchant. The tokens are using the same transaction flow as the original PAN. In the end, this gives better security, less fraud and an increased buying experience for the consumers.

Mea Merchant Tokenization

A key benefit of Mea Merchant Tokenization is that it enables merchants to ensure its customer’s stored card payment details remain valid throughout the card expiry and reissuance process, without the customer needing to update them manually. This guards against the loss in sales that results from out of date card transactions being automatically declined. In a token-on-file model, the issuer ensures that new cards are automatically mapped to the merchant’s payment token. This removes the need for the customer to update their credentials and thus enhances their buying experience.

“Since 2013, MeaWallet has worked with the major payment schemes to deliver their payments technologies to financial institutions” comments Jan Ivar Ljosland, CEO of MeaWallet. “We are very proud to selected as the partner of Axepta BNP Paribas to deliver this innovative service to the Italian market. We see Merchant Tokenization as a natural next step for EMV tokenization and a proof that this technology will truly change the way we pay.”

Mea Merchant Tokenization complies to the specifications and requirements of each payment scheme and is delivered as a fully hosted service from MeaWallet’s secure PCI-DSS certified data center.

“Tokenization has become a cornerstone of secure digital payments and is the core focus for MeaWallet” adds Ljosland. “We support card issuers, payment service providers and other financial institutions with both the knowledge and the technology solutions needed to simplify their implementation of tokenization services, so they can focus on delivering value added services and other digital features that differentiate them in the marketplace”.

Tokenization replaces sensitive card credentials, typically stored as card-on-file, with a merchant-specific token. In October 2018, Mastercard announced that it will enable token services on all cards by 2020 to make online transactions simple, seamless and secure.

Mastercard, American Express and Visa have, through their proprietary digital platforms, built tokenization and digitization solutions to support eCommerce merchant transactions. These platforms comply with EMV® Payment Tokenization, which utilizes tokens coupled with transaction cryptograms in order to bring EMV security to card-on-file transactions.

For more information on the evolution of tokenization, go to www.meawallet.com/products/ to download our lightweight eBook and MeaWallet’s Merchant Tokenization fact sheet, or contact us to set up a call!