Digital payment service provider Visa unveiled a new suite of AI-powered and future-ready payment innovations in the Philippines designed to provide Filipino consumers and businesses with secure and seamless payment experiences. These new digital payment innovations, which support the growing demand in the sector, aim to harness the power of AI to drive flexibility, security, and acceptance in digital payments.
The digital payment sector is rapidly expanding as Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas reported that 50% of retail payments were digitized in 2023, highlighting both the growing adoption and the readiness for further innovation.
“The continuously growing digital payment sector in the Philippines makes it a prime environment for technological innovation – one that harnesses AI for the benefit of the digital Filipino business owner and consumer,” said Jeffrey Navarro, country manager at Visa Philippines.
Visa has invested more than US$3-billion in AI and data infrastructure, enabling regional partners – including AI platforms, fintechs, banks, and merchants – to connect effortlessly to the Visa network. The company’s continued focus on AI, tokenization, and the real-time fraud prevention ensures every transaction remains secure in an increasingly digital landscape marked by evolving threats and the need for greater accountability.
These next-wave of solutions shaping the future of digital payment in the country include the Visa Intelligent Commerce, Visa Pay, Digital Identity, Visa Accept, Flex Credential, and Stablecoin.
Visa Intelligence Commerce consists of a suite of integrated APIs and a commercial partner program to AI platforms, enabling developers to deploy Visa’s AI commerce capabilities securely and at scale. Visa announced it is in exploration with digital payment, digitization, and fintech provider Ant International; ride-hailing, food delivery, digital payments, and financial services app Grab; and Tencent, a developer of a wide range of digital products and services, to grow AI commerce by enabling secure and seamless checkout experience.
Visa Pay is a solution that connects participating digital wallet to any Visa-accepting merchants, online or offline. Through partnership with players including LINE Pay in Taiwan, Maya in the Philippines, OpenRice in Hong Kong, and Woori Card in South Korea, Visa is expanding access to its global network, giving consumers more ways to pay globally by tapping, scanning or online.
Digital Identity is a suite of solutions that includes Passkeys, Tap to Confirm, and enhanced data meant to identify and authenticate digital users. These solutions reduce friction for consumers by being digitally native while improving payment security and authorization rates with enhanced transaction data and state-of-the-art fraud prevention techniques. New partners in the region include Coles, a supermarket chain in Australia and Maybank, a financial services producer in Malaysia and Southeast Asia.
Visa Accept allows micro-sellers to receive payments directly to their eligible Visa debit card using any NFC-enabled smartphone. This solution supports micro-entrepreneurs and informal sellers such as street vendors, freelancers, and small service providers. Participating issuers will enable cardholders to accept contactless payments through their bank’s mobile app.
Flex Credential is Visa’s next-generation card that allows users to seamlessly toggle between debt, credit, and reward points. It was first launched by Visa in partnership with Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC) and Sumitomo Mitsui Card Company (SMCC), known as Olive, two years ago in Japan. To date, more than five-million Olive account holders are benefitting from the Visa Flex Credential.
Stablecoin facilitates cryptocurrency transactions and is now expanding its offering to include stablecoin-backed cards, settlement, and programmable money. In Asia-Pacific, Visa is partnering with DCS Singapore, DTC Pay and StraitsX on stablecoin-backed cards that support conversion through regulated infrastructure. To date, Visa has settled over $225-million in stablecoin volume through Visa across participating clients.
Through the Visa Tokenized Asset Platform (VTAP), Visa provides a platform for their partners to issue and manage fiat-backed tokens, offering interconnectivity to public and private blockchains, enabling programmable financing, trading of tokenized assets and facilitating cross-border money movement. Visa is looking to expand the availability of VTAP to more partners later this year and into 2026.
