Key takeaway: As account-to-account payments scale, fraud tools that flag risk before authorization matter more than dispute tools that only work after the money is already gone.
Visa rolled out an enhanced version of A2A Protect, its real-time fraud-prevention tool for account-to-account payments, adding a fraud score built on Featurespace technology after early deployments showed fraud detection rise 75% in the tool’s first six months of use.
Visa announced the update on September 1, 2026. A2A Protect launched in 2024 following Visa’s acquisition of Featurespace, an AI fraud-detection firm, and now generates a risk score for each account-to-account transfer along with reason codes that flag emerging scam patterns and coordinated fraud activity across financial institutions, according to Visa and Digital Transactions. Banks receive network-level signals and see alerts written in plain language explaining why a transaction was flagged, and the tool integrates through a single API.
“Fraudsters move fast across payment types, and financial institutions need risk insights just as quickly, without slowing down legitimate payments,” said James Mirfin, Visa’s head of risk and security solutions. “A2A Protect combines Visa’s network expertise with Featurespace’s technology to deliver a powerful new layer of protection that helps financial institutions detect more fraud, earlier.”
The update comes as account-to-account payments accelerate. Visa projects A2A transaction volume will exceed $5.8 trillion by 2028, a 160% increase from 2024, while Juniper Research separately forecasts 83% growth in A2A payments by 2030, according to Digital Transactions.
Why it matters for merchants: Account-to-account transfers skip the card network entirely, and skipping the card network has historically meant skipping card-style chargeback protections too. As bank-to-bank payments such as real-time rails and pay-by-bank checkout options grow, fraud caught before the money moves, not after, is the difference between a stopped scam and an unrecoverable loss.
That said, the 75% detection-rate improvement is a figure Visa is reporting about its own product, not an independently audited result, so it’s worth treating as a vendor claim until third-party data confirms it.
Sources: PYMNTS; Digital Transactions
