What's Going On With Visa Stock Wednesday?

Visa Inc V shares are trading lower Wednesday. The stock appears to be facing selling pressure following a report indicating the company is facing new scrutiny from the U.S. Justice Department.

What Happened: According to a Bloomberg report citing people familiar with the matter, DOJ enforcement officials are probing the payments company over charging merchants more for not using Visa's "tokenization" technology to protect cardholder information.

The developments are the latest in a DOJ investigation that began more than two years ago and come just months after competitor Mastercard Inc MA reached agreements in a case surrounding tokenization practices. 

Visa has used tokenization for several years and offers better pricing to merchants who adopt the technology because of its superior security.

"Tokenization helps combat fraud for both card-not-present digital transactions and card present physical transactions through tap and pay and QR," Visa's website states.  

“In addition to enhancing security, tokenization can reduce friction in the payment process by enabling financial institutions to automatically update expired or compromised payment credentials without any manual updates made by the customer in the event that their Visa card is lost, stolen or expired."

See Also: PayPal Has a New CEO, But Old Challenges Remain - Analysts Discuss Future Path

V Price Action: Visa shares are up 15.44% year-to-date. The stock was down 1.18% at $237 Wednesday morning, per Benzinga Pro.

Photo: courtesy of Visa.