How many times have you thought of making a payment online and backed off because of security concerns? Well, no more.
Mastercard wants to make paying for items online both easier and safer through the new Mastercard Digital Wellness program. The program is aimed at deploying new standards and implementing a ton of technological tools to enable businesses to protect their customers’ data.
As part of the program, Mastercard plans on deploying EMVCo’s (Europay, Mastercard, Visa) standards, which include rolling out a new click-to-pay checkout system.
“We launched Mastercard Digital Wellness today because we believe that businesses shouldn’t have to sacrifice safety or choice as they build the best experiences for their customers,” Mastercard’s Executive Vice President of Product and Innovation Jess Turner said in a statement. “Any changes to how we shop online must deliver enhanced levels of security, transparency, and flexibility for everyone.”
Businesses that enable the EMVCo click-to-pay specification with Mastercard can streamline and secure their card-on-file and guest check-out experiences. Mastercard cardholders won’t be required to enter a password before they make any payment online, and the suite of products and services available in the Mastercard Digital Wellness program will help to increase approval rates, lower fraud cases and reduce PCI compliance burden.
“Expanding the availability of a secure, simple and consistent eCommerce guest checkout experience to small businesses brings great potential,” said Amy Zirkle, interim CEO, Electronic Transactions Association (ETA). “We share Mastercard’s belief that both the acquiring community and payment service providers play a critical role in supporting how merchants connect to the consumer.”
In addition to the security capabilities of NuData and support for the EMVCo standard, businesses that participate in this program will also get access to a diverse set of resources and tools to protect and empower business owners. These include a cyber toolkit for small businesses to combat online attacks and access to the Cyber Readiness Program from the Cyber Readiness Institute. Additional resources will be introduced over time.
Mastercard Digital Wellness will roll out first to all U.S. businesses and the new click-to-pay checkout will be live for American cardholders and merchants during the third quarter of 2019. Mastercard also is working with payment platforms such as Worldpay, Square, Adyen, Mastercard Payment Gateway Services, and Stripe to make these features available to more businesses more quickly.
