New Visa API Tool Updates Payment Infrastructure

The Visa Acceptance Platform now enables acquirers to modernize their payment processing through a single API.

The capability comes from the newly launched Visa Intelligent Authorization, which is now available to eligible acquirers as part of the Visa Acceptance Platform, Visa said in a Monday (March 9) press release.

Visa Intelligent Authorization enables acquirers to support emerging payment methods and new forms of commerce, and deal with today’s volumes and data complexity, without having to rebuild their own infrastructure, according to the release.

The Visa solution can process transactions across major card networks through a single integration, deliver 99.999% uptime and achieve an average approval rate of 96.3% globally, the release said.

Acquirers can use it as their main processor or as a complement to extend their capabilities, per the release.

Axel Boye-Moller, head of value-added services, Asia Pacific at Visa, said in the release that much of today’s infrastructure was not built to handle the new era of commerce that includes agentic commerce, stablecoins and digital wallets.

“Visa Intelligent Authorization is designed for this shift, delivering smarter decisioning across networks through a single integration,” Boye-Moller said. “It is built for what’s happening now, and what’s coming next.”

The PYMNTS Intelligence and Visa collaboration “Bridging the Gap: Helping Acquirers Meet Evolving Merchant Demands” found that while merchants look to acquirers as critical partners for payment innovations and expect them to keep up with rapidly advancing technologies, this can be a tall order for smaller acquirers.

Among small acquirers, defined as those processing less than $1 billion per year, just 10% have high confidence in their ability to meet merchants’ demand for seamless unified shopping, according to the report.

“Despite these challenges, small acquirers can still play in the big leagues,” the report said. “The industry-wide shift toward modular, third-party solutions levels the playing field and eliminates the resource-intensive need to build technology in-house.”

Meanwhile, Visa announced in February that its Visa Acceptance Platform now enables clients to offer Tap to Pay on iPhone. This capability is enabled by a software development kit for payment service providers, independent software vendors and direct merchant clients.