Mastercard has announced its ambitious vision to transform online shopping by 2030, eliminating the need for manual card entries and passwords. Instead, secure biometric authentication, such as fingerprints and facial recognition, will enable seamless checkout across devices. Mastercard's approach combines tokenization, which protects sensitive data, with biometrics, ensuring transactions remain secure and efficient. This shift aims to make every transaction on its network both tokenized and authenticated, resulting in smoother and safer checkouts.
Mastercard’s research highlights the need for change: online fraud rates are seven times higher than in-store, and nearly two-thirds of shoppers struggle with manual card entry, leading to 25% of carts being abandoned due to slow or complex checkouts. By simplifying and securing the checkout process, Mastercard hopes to improve the online shopping experience for consumers and reduce fraud for merchants.
A safer future with numberless cards
Mastercard’s plans extend beyond online shopping; by making numberless physical cards the norm, the company aims to reduce fraud risks if a card is lost or stolen. These advancements, driven by tokenization technology, have already boosted transaction approval rates and reduced cart abandonment, generating an estimated $2 billion in monthly sales for merchants worldwide.
Global rollout and collaboration
To achieve this vision, Mastercard is partnering with various players in the payments ecosystem. Today, over 30% of Mastercard transactions are tokenized, with markets like India nearing 100% for e-commerce. Initiatives such as the Mastercard Payment Passkey Service and Click to Pay are scaling globally, simplifying and securing payment processes for millions of users.
Jorn Lambert, Mastercard’s chief product officer, emphasized, “We’re moving from manual entry and passwords to seamless, secure payments. This transformation provides consumers with greater control and convenience while lowering fraud for issuers.”
