Global payments giant Mastercard is introducing an Open Banking-backed account opening programme to increase adoption of the financial service in the US.
The offering will be rolled out for consumer prepaid issuers in the US, with Mastercard providing a set of Open Banking products to also benefit from small business debit issuers.
The programme aims to improve the digital account opening process by verifying account ownership, lowering account abandonment, reducing non-sufficient fund returns and minimising manual entry of payment credentials.
Mastercard will leverage industry standards and machine learning, as well promoting the safe exchange of consumer-permissioned data, to support a streamlined digital account opening experience which provides several benefits.
These benefits include verification of account ownership, lower abandonment of inactive accounts through rapid account funding, a more seamless user experience and reduced costs with real-time balance checks.
Silvana Hernandez, Executive Vice President, Product and Engineering, North America, Mastercard, said: “Today’s digital consumer is increasingly opening bank accounts online, gravitating towards the convenience and efficiency of the experience versus more traditional manual methods.
“The Open Banking for Account Opening program provides another entry point to the digital economy through valuable and secure experiences that lean into the power of consumer-permissioned data.”
A study from Insider Intelligence found that Gen Z mobile banking adoption continues to rise sharply at 12.4% year over year, from 20.7 million in 2020 to 47.8 million by 2026.
To meet the demands of the increasingly digital world, Mastercard is providing US issuers who opt into the program free access to its Account Owner Verification, Account Detail Verification and Account Balance Check solutions.
