How Visa is Revolutionizing the way Commercial Payments Travel the World

We studied distributed ledger technology capabilities and ways to leverage them to ensure security and payment stability. We integrated Visa’s core system capabilities with open source Hyperledger Fabric framework from the Linux Foundation, ultimately creating a scalable, permissioned network. This unique distributed-ledger-based architecture can enable significantly shorter transaction times—from weeks to one to two days.

Innovating securely

Applying our experience opening up VisaNet, we designed the Visa B2B Connect architecture to protect participants while providing opportunities for multiple players to access and contribute value to the network. Our expertise in managing global network infrastructure for a highly regulated economic marketplace was critical here. Now banks can plug in and exchange value in an environment where compliance, control, governance, and security are all of equal importance. Data flows through our controlled data centers with high levels of security, offering banks and their corporate clients a rich set of data (thanks to applied machine learning and AI capabilities). That’s a significant, transformational change.

We leveraged not only data encryption but tokenization of sensitive data. Visa B2B Connect’s digital identity feature tokenizes a corporation’s sensitive business information, such as banking details and account numbers, with a unique identifier for securing transactions on the network. This digital identity greatly reduces the chance for fraud that might otherwise exist with current international transaction methods, while helping enable companies to meet their compliance obligations within the regulated financial ecosystem.

Innovating for legacy systems

We had to be cognizant of the fact that, by bringing banks on board, legacy infrastructure would be connected to the network on day one. We created multiple implementation options for banks to tap into this new multilateral network in various ways. We built in the capabilities at the network level to translate old message formats into native new ones. We also worked with technology partners, like FIS and Bottomline, to act as payment hubs so that apre-built adaptor could enable seamless integration for our mutual bank clients from the start.

Innovating for the future

Visa, which has historically been a card-based network, enters a new payment flow with Visa B2BConnect. We've laid the foundational rails for what could expand into multiple product extensions. Today it’s a high-value cross-border payment network for our bank partners. Tomorrow it could service industries such as trade finance and supply chain at scale in different geographies, meeting unique market needs and applying the same levels of security and transparency that our partners have come to trust.