Giesecke+Devrient says token platform passes 1.4bn

Giesecke+Devrient says its Fusion Platform now manages more than 1.4 billion payment tokens for banks and card issuers across multiple payment networks in Europe.

The figure reflects the growing use of tokenisation in card payments, as online transactions increasingly rely on digital tokens instead of card numbers. Through its software subsidiary G+D Netcetera, the group says the platform handles token provisioning and lifecycle management for issuers across several card schemes.

Tokenisation replaces a card's primary account number with a separate digital identifier for payments. Issuers must then create, activate, update and retire those tokens across different networks as cards are added to digital wallets, renewed, suspended or replaced.

The operational burden has grown as card networks push token use deeper into eCommerce. Mastercard has said three in five eCommerce transactions on its European network are tokenised, while Visa has said it manages three times more tokens than physical cards globally and that more than half of its transactions are now tokenised.

That shift has made token management a core payments function for banks and card issuers rather than a background fraud control. Network data cited by the company indicates that tokenised transactions produce higher approval rates and lower fraud rates, linking the quality of token infrastructure directly to revenue and fraud costs.

For issuers, outages or delays in token provisioning can have immediate commercial effects. If a cardholder cannot add a card to a wallet, replace an expired credential or complete an online transaction through a tokenised process, the issuer risks losing payment volume and weakening the customer experience.

AI payments

Another driver is the emergence of AI-based commerce services from major payment networks. Mastercard has introduced Agent Pay, which uses what it calls agentic tokens on top of its tokenisation systems. Visa Intelligent Commerce combines tokenisation with payment credentials, authentication and spending controls for agentic transactions, while American Express has also released a developer kit for similar use cases.

These initiatives suggest token infrastructure will underpin the next stage of digital payments, particularly where software agents initiate or manage purchases on behalf of consumers or businesses. In that model, the token becomes not just a security substitute for card data but a building block for how payment permissions are issued and controlled.

European banks also face a regulatory question over where this infrastructure sits and who oversees it. The Digital Operational Resilience Act, or DORA, requires financial institutions to demonstrate digital operational resilience and oversee third-party information and communications technology providers.

In parallel, the Council of the European Union has published final compromise texts for PSD3 and the Payment Services Regulation, adding to a broader regulatory overhaul in payments. That has sharpened scrutiny of critical systems used to process and secure transactions, including token platforms that sit between issuers and card networks.

Giesecke+Devrient says its position in Europe reflects demand from institutions seeking cross-network token management under European supervision. The group is headquartered in Munich and operates in digital security, financial platforms and currency technology.

The token platform is part of G+D Netcetera, the group's financial software business. Parent company Giesecke+Devrient says it employs more than 14,500 people and generated EUR 3.2 billion in turnover in its 2025 financial year.

The announcement comes against a broader restructuring of online card payments around token rails. As more issuers move customers into wallet payments, card-on-file services and one-click checkout tools, they need infrastructure that can support constant token updates across merchants, devices and schemes.

That creates a market for specialist providers that can manage the token lifecycle at scale, particularly for banks that do not want to build and maintain separate integrations for each network. Cross-network platforms also appeal to issuers seeking to reduce operational complexity while meeting resilience and compliance standards.

"Tokenization used to be a background security measure. Today, it is a prerequisite for participating in digital commerce at all," said Jukka Yliuntinen, Head of Digital Issuance, G+D Netcetera.

"Payment networks are building their frameworks for AI-powered commerce on top of existing tokenization. Institutions that cannot manage tokens across networks and in real time will not be able to support these use cases. For European financial institutions, there is the added requirement that this infrastructure be operated under European supervision. With our platform, we are actively contributing to the development of agent-based payments across multiple networks and enabling straightforward adoption for the entire payments industry," said Yliuntinen.