Mastercard has announced its intention to remove the need for passwords and manual card entry by 2030 through biometric authentication.
The payments giant said that it will make one-time codes and passwords obsolete by combining biometric authentication, such as face or palm recognition, with tokenisation.
Mastercard believes that progress is already being made and that these authentication methods will become the norm for consumers in just a few years.
Jorn Lambert, Chief Product Officer at Mastercard, commented: “Just like the transition from signing and swiping to tapping cards, we’re now moving from manual entry and passwords to seamless and secure payments in just a few clicks.
“With this shift, we are protecting sensitive data through advanced encryption and tokenisation technologies.”
There are several benefits of this method for shoppers. Firstly, there will be less chance of fraud as criminals won’t be able to exploit exposed card numbers. This will also make stealing physical cards redundant as they cannot be used without biometric authentication.
Secondly, Mastercard research shows that nearly two-thirds of shoppers struggle to manually enter their card details, leading to 25% of carts being abandoned because checkout is too complex or slow.
As mentioned above, progress towards this 2030 goal is already being made in the payments space.
According to Mastercard, more than 30% of Mastercard transactions worldwide are tokenised through Mastercard Digital Enablement Service (MDES), which is nearing 100% use in India for e-commerce.
Earlier this week, the payments company partnered with Tap Payments to launch a new payment passkey service to Click to Pay. This payment innovation enables device-based biometric authentication, to make commerce payments more secure by replacing traditional passwords.
Lambert concluded: “As payments continue to be embedded across a range of commerce experiences, we’re leading the way to a global economy that empowers everyone – providing consumers with greater control, convenience and peace-of-mind while unlocking new sales for merchants, and lowering fraud for issuers.”
