Visa unveils a trio of new tools to make the payments process easier

At Visa’s ETA Transact event on April 3, the payments giant introduced three new products designed to simplify and secure payment acceptance. These innovations—Authorize.net 2.0, Unified Checkout, and the ARIC Risk Hub—all aim to enhance efficiency and fraud protection for businesses navigating an increasingly complex commercial landscape.

By integrating the three new tools, Visa seeks to service businesses end to end—from integrating with existing platforms to accepting more payments, reducing checkout friction, and managing risk efficiently. 

“Visa is looking to wherever appropriate to invest in next-generation technologies and uplift our products,” says Rob Cameron, global head of Visa Acceptance Solutions.

Authorize.net 2.0

A major overhaul of one of the first internet platforms for e-commerce payments, Authorize.net 2.0 enhances the user experience while connecting businesses with banks and merchant acquirers across the United States. New AI-driven tools further enhance the platform by automating tasks and optimizing payment strategies. Businesses can now issue invoices simply by speaking to Authorize.net, which will generate the invoice, locate the customer, and prepare the invoice for sending—eliminating manual entry. 

Subscription-based businesses, such as tutoring services, will benefit from the platform’s streamlined setup to accept payments and then charge customers on a recurring basis. “This saves time and allows small-business owners to operate more efficiently,” Cameron says.

Unified Checkout

Unified Checkout is Visa’s next-generation solution for online payments, designed to create a seamless experience for merchants and customers that reduces lost sales at the checkout point. By automatically adapting the checkout page to match a business’s website, the system ensures a consistent look and feel while improving security.

“It’ll look at your existing website, and then it’ll configure a checkout page so it looks like you’re still in the same environment, even though we’ve insulated the website from the credit card data and all the things that websites don’t actually want for security,” Cameron says.

Businesses can customize the checkout button order based on insights, prioritizing payment methods like Apple Pay to match customer preferences. With “25 out-of-the-box, different payment types,” including Klarna’s buy now, pay later services, the system helps reduce cart abandonment by ensuring customers find their preferred payment method.

The platform also enhances customer retention through tokenization, allowing returning customers to shift from “guest checkout to remember me next time” for a smoother purchasing experience. 

ARIC Risk Hub

Visa’s 2024 acquisition of Featurespace led to the development of ARIC (adaptive, real-time, individual, change identification) Risk Hub, a fraud-detection and risk-management tool that enhances acquirers’ ability to monitor risk and protect merchants. ​​Featurespace’s powerful, adaptive AI helps identify risky transactions and builds profiles around genuine customer activity to increase approvals and stop bad actors in real time.

This system enables “dynamic settlement,” meaning businesses can receive payments based on risk assessments. 

“If I decide you’re low risk, maybe I’ll decide to settle you instantly and I’ll give you money right away,” Cameron says, noting that for higher-risk businesses—such as those selling furniture that won’t be delivered for months—reserves can be adjusted dynamically.

The platform’s ongoing monitoring allows financial institutions to approve more merchants up front. Without it, strict barriers are needed to block risky merchants. However, by continuously analyzing transactions and merchant behavior, acquirers can make smarter decisions over time. Cameron says this can ultimately boost revenue by increasing approval rates.

Additionally, ARIC Risk Hub provides fraud prevention through acquirer-backed monitoring services. If a merchant receives a suspicious order, the system can detect risks and issue a warning, which, Cameron notes, “allows acquirers to actually provide monitoring services to protect their merchants.”