Businesstech Africa is reporting live from the VISA CEMEA conference in Cape Town today (25 Feb) with a front row view of the payments landscape that is shaping a revolutionary future.
The reality faced by the payments industry today, is that there is a large crime element that is constantly seeking to compromise payments, and the payments industry is all too aware of these risks.
AI Driving Rapid Digital Adoption
Charles Lobo, the Regional Risk Officer at Visa, expanded on the current environment stating that Visa has now deployed over 100 AI powered defences that are linked to Visas immense database of transactions to strengthen their security base. This level of security, is as he says; “Building a fortress of trust in an ever developing digital world”, with “Trust the bedrock of the relationship they have with their clients”.
The changes in the payments environment was highlighted by Andrew Torre, Regional President CEMEA Visa, who provided an eye opening statement that the payments environment had changed more in the past 5 years than had been seen in the previous 50-year period, and is likely to change more in the next two-years than has been seen in the past five.
The astonishing speed is remarkable but not unexpected, when one takes into consideration the rapid development in technology and Fintech in particular, that has seen a complete revolution with the introduction of AI and AI agents.
Payments Eco-System Data Astonishing
The outcome of this change is reflected in the data that shows the reduction in cash transactions worldwide dropping from around 65% in 2019 to 43% in 2024. This trend is accelerating with a 5% drop in the last year alone.
Linked to this is the level of card issuance growing by almost 70% in only five years, from 230 million in 2019 to 390 million in 2024, and more importantly a growth in the number of merchants linked to the payments eco-system of 260% from around 5 million in 2019 to over 13 million in 2024.
Key Changes Driving Adoption
There are several factors that has enabled this growth that includes:
- Ai tools Securing the payment eco-system
- Growth in digital identity technology and adoption
- Real-time payment system improvements and momentum in developments
- Agent to Agent payment streamlining
- Growth in embedded finance
- Improvements in legislative environment
The development of AI as protection for the increased volumes has been revolutionary. The ability of AI to do the heavy lifting in terms of analysing and detecting threats, means that staff can now focus on improving response times and developing additional security systems such as post modem crypto systems that are intended to future proof systems without the requirements of using physical hardware by adoption of cloud computing.
This software, rather than hardware driven security system, allows for much faster responses to threats that can be adopted and created within hours instead of days.
These improvements is not only allowing further growth but is also ensuring a safer transactional environment that is likely to accelerate developments further in the near future.
