Digital payments in public transport can become common reality in Azerbaijan - VISA

By Trend

Participants of the Baku Fintex Summit held on June 16-17 not only underlined the obvious success of digitalization in Azerbaijan, but also outlined the stages of its upcoming development in such sectors as urban mobility, security and corporate social responsibility, Visa's Azerbaijani representative office told Trend.

According to the representative office, on the first day of the event, the speakers shared the opinion that there are all the necessary prerequisites for the further digitalization of Azerbaijan.

During the second day of the event, Visa Regional Manager in Azerbaijan Nurlan Hajiyev said that Visa is a reliable partner for major infrastructure projects in Azerbaijan. He said that digital payments in the field of transport can become the common reality in the country.

“Visa recognizes that cities are increasingly moving towards inclusiveness, connectivity and sustainability, and we are actively supporting them as they move towards these goals. We help cities and transport operators meet challenges and improve urban mobility with simple, convenient and secure solutions for digital payments," Hajiyev said.

Besides, according to him, everyone has benefited from the introduction of digital payments.

“City authorities found fiscal transparency attractive; transport companies got more passenger traffic and scheduling capability, and consumers got an alternative payment option which doesn’t involve physical contact and is fast and safe. The ultimate goal of urban mobility is the transformation of transport solutions into a single ecosystem," Hajiyev noted.

Senior Vice President and Chief Risk Officer (Visa, CEMEA) Charles Libo informed Fintex Summit participants about the following trends in post-pandemic risk management and payment security (from the point of view of issuers):

• e-commerce payment volumes rapidly grow and fraud rates remain low;

• level of tokenization has increased by 100 percent, which gave customers a secure and contactless payment experience;

• 3-D Secure platform shows growth of 85 percent. At the same time, the level of fraud fell by three times against the background of the general CNP (transactions without the presence of cards);

• contactless payments continue to grow by 20 percent per year and now dominate F2F (face-to-face) payments with near-zero fraud rates;

• social engineering (SI) remains a challenge for many global and local markets.

"Tokenization has proven its security benefits by devaluing sensitive information. This means that sensitive data such as card number, CVV, and others no more attract cyber criminals, because during tokenization, your card number is simply replaced with token," the expert noted.

According to him, social engineering (SE) is the dominant approach in which fraudsters deliberately attack consumers.

"Visa has invested heavily in consumer education and awareness, as well as working with partners in banks, lending institutions and the government to raise awareness of SE-based attacks," he said.