Visa has launched a new security roadmap for Malaysia’s payments industry, targeting AI-driven fraud through 2028.
Now in its third edition after debuting in 2019 and updating in 2023, the roadmap responds to a shift in how scams work.
Malaysians lost RM2.97 billion to scams in 2025, the highest figure recorded in three years.
Information and communications technology, together with e-commerce, contributed 23.4 per cent of the national economy in 2024, worth RM451.3 billion.
Jason Phua, Head of Clients at Visa Malaysia, said,
“With this roadmap, Visa is setting out a common direction for the industry to collectively work towards in strengthening the resilience of Malaysia’s payments ecosystem, while continuing to enable secure and seamless digital commerce.”
Six priorities for a secure payments ecosystem
The roadmap sets six priorities. It calls for stronger cybersecurity readiness and closer oversight of third-party risks, and pushes authentication beyond SMS one-time passwords toward biometrics and in-app methods such as payment passkeys.
It backs wider use of tokenisation to replace sensitive card numbers, reducing the value of stolen data to criminals, and supports streamlined checkout options such as Click to Pay.
It also calls for tighter baseline standards across fraud reporting, merchant onboarding and third-party compliance.
Alongside this, it pushes broader efforts to build ecosystem resilience through real-time risk detection and cross-sector cooperation.
The roadmap assigns roles across the ecosystem. Issuers strengthen real-time risk decisions, while acquirers and merchants tighten onboarding and checkout security.
Third-party providers reinforce data protection and compliance, and regulators support intelligence sharing and common standards.
Consumers are encouraged to use secure authentication, enable transaction alerts and stay alert to scam tactics.
Visa’s track record on fraud prevention
Visa has developed AI-based fraud tools since 1993 and runs more than 150 AI and machine-learning models across its network.
This includes systems for transaction risk assessment, online authentication and token-provisioning fraud detection.
These are supported by behavioural analytics from Featurespace, which tracks over 400 signals to flag unusual activity in milliseconds.
Over the past five years, Visa has invested more than US$12 billion in technology to reduce fraud and strengthen network security.
Through its Scam Disruption programme, the company says it has intercepted over US$1 billion in attempted fraud in a single year.
It has also worked with law enforcement to shut down more than 25,000 scam merchants worldwide.
Featured image: Edited by Fintech News Malaysia, based on image by WangXiNa via Magnific
