• Visa has announced the launch of Tap to Add Card in South Africa.
• It will allow cardholders to add their Visa contactless cards to digital wallets with a tap on their mobile device.
• The local rollout of the feature is also said to offer “enhanced security and convenience”.

In recent years South Africans have embraced contactless payments on the back of the pandemic, and payment facilitators have looked to launch more features locally as a result. The latest comes from Visa, with the company announcing the launch of Tap to Add Card in South Africa.

As the name would suggest, the new feature is designed to streamline digital payment solutions by allowing cardholders to add their Visa contactless cards to digital wallets with a tap on their mobile device.

“Tap to Add Card eliminates the cumbersome process of manual entry, a common source of errors and a vulnerability exploited by fraudsters seeking to compromise sensitive card information. The tap generates a unique, one-time code validated by Visa’s Chip Authenticate service, ensuring secure provisioning of card credentials and offering a significantly faster and more secure alternative to traditional methods,” Visa highlighted in a release to Hypertext.

“We are excited to bring the enhanced security and simplicity of Tap to Add Card to South Africa. The solution provides cardholders with greater peace of mind when adding a card to a digital wallet, knowing their information is protected by advanced security measures. We believe that Tap to Add Card will be instrumental in driving further adoption of digital wallets in South Africa by addressing key security concerns and simplifying the user experience,” added Lineshree Moodley, country head of Visa South Africa.

The company also pointed out that Tap to Add Card has proved a success since launching in other parts of the globe in September last year. In particular, it can, “help reduce the risk and associated costs of provisioning fraud, simplifies the add-to-wallet process leading to fewer customer service inquiries, and improves transaction approval rates,” according to Visa.

While the feature is rolling out now, it may take a couple of weeks before all Visa-affiliated financial institutions makes it available to customers to access.

[Image – Photo by Philip Oroni on Unsplash]