Payment infrastructure company Walletdoc has become the first payment gateway in South Africa to integrate Visa Payment Passkeys, stealing a march on regional rivals in the race to remove authentication friction from digital card transactions.
The deployment allows local e-commerce merchants to replace standard 3D Secure (3DS) verification steps — such as text-delivered one-time passcodes (OTPs) and app-based bank redirects — with device-native biometrics, including facial recognition and fingerprint scans.
Addressing the Checkout Bottleneck
Digital commerce in South Africa has expanded steadily, but merchants continue to grapple with cart abandonment during the payment authorization phase. Under legacy 3DS protocols, shoppers making card-not-present payments are routinely redirected to their issuing bank to approve transactions. This process is frequently disrupted by telecom network delays, SMS delivery failures, and user drop-offs.
The new passkey framework relies on Fast Identity Online (FIDO2) standards. Cryptographic credentials remain stored locally on a consumer’s device within its secure enclave. Consequently, authorization occurs natively without sharing biometric details with merchants, gateways, or card networks.
According to data published by Visa, biometric verification reduces transaction fraud by up to 50 per cent compared with SMS OTPs, which remain vulnerable to SIM-swapping attacks and intercept schemes.
A Competitive Edge in Regional Fintech
Walletdoc’s early launch provides a tactical edge over larger payment processors and gateways operating across Southern Africa, such as PayFast, Peach Payments, and Stitch.
E-commerce conversion rates are a central determinant for enterprise retailers selecting payment gateways. Processors capable of shaving seconds off checkout times and reducing drop-off rates are positioned to capture greater transaction volume from online merchants.
“At Walletdoc we believe payments should be simple, secure and effortless for the customer,” said Dan Wagner, Joint Chief Executive of Walletdoc. He noted that deploying the protocol offers local merchants a standardized path to curb fraud while improving transaction completion rates.
The rollout aligns with a broader push by international card schemes to modernize digital authentication across Sub-Saharan Africa, where smartphone penetration is high but traditional SMS reliability varies.
“For years, the industry has faced a fundamental challenge in digital commerce: how to make authentication stronger without making the customer journey more complicated,” said Vinesh Ramnarain, Vice President of Product and Solutions for Visa Sub-Saharan Africa. “Visa Payment Passkeys combine robust, phishing-resistant security with an experience that feels intuitive.”
Broader Market Shift
The passkey deployment complements existing digital wallet integrations in the market, such as Apple Pay and Google Pay. However, whereas mobile wallets are tied to specific platform ecosystems, Visa Payment Passkeys extend biometric authorization across standard browser- and app-based Visa card transactions.
With an estimated four billion consumer devices globally supporting FIDO2 protocols across major web browsers and operating systems, industry analysts expect rival payment facilitators in Africa to follow suit as banks update their authentication architectures.
This video illustrates how biometric passkey authentication operates during an online card purchase to eliminate traditional passcode delays.