Visa is set to acquire CardinalCommerce, an eCommerce payment authentication solutions provider, the companies have announced.

In a statement, Visa Risk and Authentication Products SVP Mark Nelsen called it a “strategic acquisition” intended “to bring added security to online transactions, reduce fraud, and support digital commerce which is the fastest growing commerce segment today.” The company’s statement further suggested that CardinalCommerce will help it to integrate tokenization into its Visa Checkout service over the next 18 months.

The deal reflects what appears to be an intensifying focus on security on Visa’s part, with the company recently having announced a new partnership with BioConnect to replace mobile password security with multimodal biometric authentication.

Visa already offers CardinalCommerce services to merchants through its CyberSource platform, but the acquisition should allow it to expand such offerings. The deal is expected to close in the second quarter of next year.