Payments glossary
Network tokenisation
Network tokenisation is tokenisation performed by the card schemes themselves: Visa or Mastercard issue the token and keep it linked to the underlying card, updating it automatically when the card is reissued - which improves approval rates for stored-card payments.
Tokens issued by the schemes themselves
Network tokenisation moves token issuance from the payment provider to the card scheme. Visa or Mastercard issues the token, keeps its link to the underlying card inside the scheme's own vault, and - critically - maintains that link over the card's lifetime. When the plastic expires or is reissued after loss, the network token stays valid and simply points at the new card, without the customer or the merchant doing anything.
Why the industry is moving this way
Stored-credential payments fail most often for a mundane reason: the card on file went stale. Because the scheme always knows the card's current status, network tokens keep subscriptions and card-on-file relationships alive through reissue cycles, and issuers tend to treat scheme-issued tokens as higher-confidence credentials. It is the same mechanism behind Apple Pay and Google Pay, extended to merchant-stored cards - and the card schemes have made it a clear strategic direction for card-not-present payments globally.
Network tokens and provider tokens together
Network tokenisation complements rather than replaces provider tokenisation: merchants still integrate against their provider's token, and the provider maps it to a network token behind the scenes where scheme and issuer support exists. LekkaPay's tokenisation vault is live today, and network tokenisation is live on the platform - via Visa Token Service and Mastercard Checkout Solutions - used automatically wherever the schemes support it.
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