Visa plans to add 28 new partners to its Visa Token Service (VTS) platform as credential-on-file (COF) token requestors to make digital transactions more secure globally.

Tokenization replaces 16-digit Visa account number with a token that only Visa can unlock, thus hiding the customer’s card number from fraudsters.

The partners will help tokenize both one-time and recurring payments made with Visa credentials on behalf of the merchant and payment clients.

In addition to boosting payment security, with tokenization, customers do not have to manually update stored card information if their Visa card is lost, stolen or expires.

Financial institutions will automatically update the expired or compromised payment credentials. This helps lessen missed payments for merchants and avoid late fees for consumers.

Visa digital payment products SVP Ansar Ansari said: “Consumers are shifting more rapidly than ever to digital-first commerce, no matter what they’re buying, and tokenization is one of the most effective tools Visa uses to fight fraud and improve the digital payment experience.

“We’ve seen a fraud reduction rate of 26% for digital transactions processed through Visa Token Service compared to traditional online card transactions.”

Visa has reported that over 69% of US consumers choose to store a card-on-file or set up automatic mandates for bill payments.

To make online and recurring digital payments less susceptible to fraud, Visa has added more than 150 token requestor partners to VTS in the last five years.

Launched in 2014, the VTS platform has onboarded partners like mobile and wearable manufactures, issuer wallets, online merchants, payment service providers and acquirers, across 137 markets.

After the latest addition of new partners, Visa expects to process a combined digital payment volume of $1trn.