Mastercard wants to take over part of the GDPR responsibility of companies

Little data is more sensitive than customers’ personal and payment data. Anyone who is hacked not only has a great responsibility but also suffers irreversible damage to their image. Payment specialist Mastercard wants to meet these requirements.

Mastercard is no longer a credit card company, but a technology company, as Bart Willaert, EVP Digital Market Solutions and Deployment, told Techzine at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. In doing so, he frames a handful of recent technological developments from the payment specialist’s stable. Most striking are NuDetect and MDES. Both technologies fit within the vision of Mastercard today, explains Willaert.

In concrete terms, he describes his company as a provider of solutions that simplify payment transactions in a secure manner. The core of the ambition is to help consumers and organisations with products, whether they are related to a payment card, a mobile application or online payments.

MDES and NuDetect

At MWC we see demos of MDES and NuDetect in that respect. MDES, short for Mastercard Digital Enablement Service, offers the most interesting solution to merchants. The service takes over responsibility for the storage of sensitive payment data. Willaert: Mastercard stores payment details in cooperation with participating banks, and authorizes the digital trader via a unique token. If a hacker had to make a run for those tokens in one way or another, they are worthless.

There is also added value for the consumer: since the payment details are in one place, he retains control. It is easy to revoke website authentication or update an expired credit card via a central portal. The solution is already embraced in several countries, including Netflix, knows Willaert.

Score

Mastercard also shows NuDetect using a demo. This is a product of the recently acquired NuData. NuDetect is another service that banks can build into their own applications. The service analyses how consumers use their smartphones. The angle at which a person usually keeps his phone is taken into account, among other things. NuDetect builds a security score on the basis of various parameters.

If the service is completely certain that the owner of the device has just placed an order, and other things such as the delivery address are correct, then the transaction can proceed without further ado. If the security is not high enough, NuDetect triggers an extra layer of authentication. The bank app will then ask for an extra login via a fingerprint, for example.

Evolution

Both technologies are available today and are embraced and tested in different degrees. They illustrate how payment is increasingly evolving towards a digital reality, and how traditional organisations such as Mastercard are evolving along with it. We only see the fact that part of the responsibility of traditional companies is thus taken away as a possible plus point.