Visa faces U.S. DOJ scrutiny for how it prices 'token' technology
BNN Bloomberg
Visa Inc. is facing fresh scrutiny from the U.S. Justice Department over how it charges merchants for technology it uses to protect cardholder information.
As part of a long-running DOJ investigation, enforcement officials have begun probing the payment giant’s policies for charging retailers more if they don’t use Visa’s proprietary “tokenization” technology, according to people familiar with the matter.
The service, which swaps sensitive card numbers with tokens that can only be used on a specific device or with a particular merchant, is designed to improve the security of any given payment.
The inquiries come more than two years after the agency first informed Visa it was opening an antitrust probe into the company’s practices, and several months after rival Mastercard Inc. resolved a case involving its own tokenization practices. The Justice Department has issued a raft of civil investigative demands this year regarding potential violations of the Sherman Antitrust Act, the US’s primary law aimed at reining in monopolies.
