Mastercard has announced the introduction of its Digital Wellness program which utilises AI-based click-to-pay technology and new standards in order to provide an easier and safer online shopping experience.
The Program
The Mastercard Digital Wellness program provides tips and resources that are designed to help businesses (especially small and independent businesses) protect themselves from cyber-attacks and data breaches. The program includes Secure Remote Commerce, Mastercard’s Cyber Readiness Institute (a collective of business leaders), and The Global Cyber Alliance which provides SMBs with free cyber-security tools.
New Click-To-Pay Checkout System
Coming out of the Digital Wellness Program is Mastercard’s new click-to-pay checkout system which is enabled by Mastercard’s deployment of EMVCo’s (Europay, Mastercard, Visa) specification. The standards that make up EMVCO’s specification provide a foundation that enables the processing of e-commerce transactions in a consistent, streamlined fashion over a variety of digital channels and devices, including smartphones, tablets, PCs and other connected devices.
This means that the click-to-pay checkout system can be used for all kinds of online shopping, across multiple devices, and across cards, and can replace old key-entry checkout systems.
Tokenization and NuData
The click-to-pay checkout system incorporates tokenization and NuData, which represent Mastercard’s AI and machine learning tech. NuData can prevent fraud by (for example) monitoring website traffic changes, analysing changes in browsers and web surfing speeds, and verifying all the user data that makes a user unique (such as an individual’s scroll speed on their device).
The inclusion of AI technology means greater security and no need for customers to enter passwords when they pay.
The Advantages
The key advantages of the click-to-pay checkout system from the Digital Wellness Program are that:
- It tackles the problem that customers feel unease when it comes to paying for things online because of the added security.
- It’s fast and easy – the instant click-to-pay with no need for passwords tackles the reluctance of online shoppers to create a new user account.
- Merchants who adopt the system have a system from a known and trusted provider that could give them a better chance of preventing fraud.
These factors mean that the system could make customers more likely to feel comfortable shopping for things on smaller websites or with unknown retailers.
What Does This Mean For Your Business?
For Mastercard, this is a way of selling its services to the huge market of smaller and independent businesses.
For merchants, it’s a way for them to leverage the latest AI tech to protect themselves and their customers from fraud, and tackle popular known barriers to purchases from smaller retailers online i.e. worries about security and the unwillingness to take the time to set up a new user account when they want to buy something.
For customers, the system should provide a safe and fast purchasing experience which can only reflect well on the merchant. It remains to be seen, however, how many merchants take up the new system and what the cost versus benefit implications will be.
