Mastercard Identity Check: Bringing Consumers a Better Digital Experience

The ultimate moment of shopping truth happens when we tap, dip, swipe or click and wait for approval. Nobody wants a decline—especially not a false one and especially not a false decline due to security measures put in place to protect you. This is scenario is more troubling to us than fraud losses. Because, when that happens, people don’t just abandon their cart—they often stop using their card altogether. In 2017 alone, false declines for payment card transactions account for US$303 billion in lost revenue in the U.S.¹ 

As in-store purchasing has become more secure, fraud has been creeping up online. Why? Because identity verification is a top challenge for both issuers and merchants. In fact, 50 percent of global login traffic is at high risk for potential account takeover or credential misuse.² And consumers are frustrated when they don’t have the same seamless, secure experience at every interaction. The industry is now at a point where we have information and technology available to tackle that frustration head on – EMV 3D-Secure 2.0. It’s a complicated name to describe something simple – a new industry standard used to check a consumer’s identity on digital payment transactions.

With the rollout of EMV 3D-Secure, Mastercard has created a program called Mastercard Identity Check. The program provides merchants and their banks an easy way to upgrade and enhance current security solutions to determine potential risks and ensure genuine transactions are approved in a seamless manner. Using Identity Check’s AI and machine learning, EMV 3D-Secure can now take into account over 150 different variables of a transaction to help the issuer make a more accurate, insight-based decision whether to approve a transaction or decline it.

These variables include such factors as screen brightness, device owner gestures and, shopping purchase history. They are used alongside insights from the merchant and issuer to authenticate a payment. In cases where additional authentication is needed to protect the buyer, it can be provided through the use of biometrics or a one-time password. Essentially, we’re providing another, more seamless way to prove you are you. The best part? It all happens in a blink—in that short moment of truth before a consumer sees the word “Approved”.

Delivering practical security solutions in an effortless and imperceptible fashion is critical in creating trust between people and retailers. As is fitting for today’s digital economy, the new standard enables a consistent user experience across connected devices, in-app or on a browser. When merchants and issuers have greater confidence in the consumer’s identity, approvals increase on average 11 percent which means fewer false declines, happy merchants and recurring shoppers–not to mention a simpler shopping experience for us all.

To learn more on how the new standard will help merchants, click here.

¹ – 2017 Federal Reserve Study

² – NuData Research