Visa on Thursday launched its Payment Passkey service in India, allowing cardholders to approve online payments the way they unlock their phone or laptop, instead of receiving and entering a one-time password.
The service has gone live with IDFC FIRST Bank, Visa’s banking partner, and is being rolled out to select users across merchants such as Myntra, Paytm, MakeMyTrip, Tata Starbucks, Reliance Digital, and EatSure, the company said.
Its payment and technology partners Juspay, Wibmo, Razorpay, PayU, Pine Labs, BillDesk, M2P Fintech, and Paytm Payments Services are supporting the integration.
The product is based on FIDO, a global passkey framework that lets a device or browser verify a user’s identity without relying on passwords or OTPs. In practice, this means a customer can complete a card payment using a fingerprint, facial recognition, device PIN, password, or pattern. The authentication stays linked to the user’s device and does not require the customer to type a code received over SMS.
Visa said customers need to enrol once for the service. After that, the passkey can be used across participating merchants and platforms where the service is enabled.
The launch comes as banks, card networks, and payment aggregators rework online card checkout after the Reserve Bank of India’s new authentication framework took effect on April 1, 2026. The framework retained the need for two-factor authentication for digital payments, but allowed banks and payment companies to use alternatives to SMS OTPs.
OTP-based checkout has been a friction point for online card payments in India, with transactions often failing because of delayed OTP delivery, weak network connectivity, wrong entries, or redirect issues. Visa said the passkey flow is expected to improve payment success rates and reduce the number of steps needed to complete an online transaction.
“With Visa Payment Passkey, we are helping make digital commerce safer, more inclusive, and easier to use by enabling people to authenticate card payments through familiar device-based experiences such as biometrics, PINs, passwords, or patterns,” said Suresh Sethi, group country manager, India and South Asia, Visa.
Visa has been developing the product for nearly two years. ET first reported on the initiative on November 7, 2024.
The company is also positioning passkeys as part of the infrastructure for agent-led commerce, where users may eventually authorise software agents to make purchases on their behalf. At a briefing, Visa’s Ramakrishnan Gopalan, head of products, India and South Asia, said passkeys could capture a customer’s approval before such delegated transactions are initiated.
Visa said the service is compatible with major operating systems and browsers and is supported by passkey-enabled devices globally.
