The financial service is introducing tokenization services for customers paying through mobile and digital to more securely and seamlessly use their MasterCard. The service creates a unique token or code for each individual credit card, and rather than frequently using the credit number, the token is used to prevent hackers from accessing important numbers.

“Security was built into the core of the MasterCard Digital Enablement Service, which was developed to provide tokenization and digitization services for MasterCard cards.” said James Anderson, group executive of emerging payments at MasterCard. “MasterCard is working to ensure consumers can securely use their cards when, where and how they want regardless of the device they own or operating system they use.

“As our industry evolves, MasterCard delivers safe, simple, intuitive platforms and solutions and we are committed to helping our partners provide enhanced consumer experiences,” he said. “In talking with our merchant partners, it quickly became clear that private label, store-branded and card on file transactions were a priority focus for them in identifying how to ensure that these types of transactions and offerings were able to take advantage of the most secure payment technologies available while also providing consumers the opportunity to utilize the latest digital wallet solutions.

“That was enough to make it a priority for us to get to today’s news.”

Security breach
As mobile payments increase, so does the worry for the security of these services. With so many frequent hacking attacks on big name retailers such as Target and Home Depot, consumers can be hesitant to enter in their credit information on mobile services, as it seems even more unstable.

Payment services are working hard to ensure that their platforms are secure and to prevent any and all breaches of security. It is imperative that these services are protected, the more secure of an image they project the more consumers will use them.

MasterCard’s tokenization service creates an individual token for each retailer, to further prevent any privacy violations.

The updated service also allows for consumers to have a more seamless payment experience across all retailers and channels. Usually when a customer replaces a card, it requires her to access all mobile platforms, in which her information was stored to update the information.

The token service eliminates that issue and no information needs to be adjusted. This allows for retailers and merchants using MasterCard to create a more authentic image for users.

Having to adjust credit card information on so many different apps and services is frustrating, especially if numerous passwords and user names must be remembered. Many times users do not remember passwords they have not used in some time, when updated incorrectly these services are declined which deters consumers and creates a bad impression for the retailer.

Mobile payment innovation
MasterCard is quickly becoming an innovator in mobile payments and is attempting to become involved in any form of mobile and digital payments.

The financial service’s recently launched personal payments service aims to be an answer for consumers looking to speed up money transfers while indulging their preference for sending and receiving funds via connected devices (see more).

Also, a MasterCard executive at the Mcommerce Summit: State of Mobile Commerce 2015 said leveraging smart technology to establish the secure use of services is the key to building trust that will accelerate broad adoption of mobile payments (see more).

“The key to digital payments progress is a strong foundation that is scalable coupled with committed stakeholders who are working to ensure broad base availability for consumer use,” Mr. Anderson said. “Our goal is to get to a point that any consumer can use any MasterCard on the device of their choice at the merchant of their choice either online or off with the confidence that it is a secure MasterCard transaction.

“That is why we are working with all parties, digital providers, issuers and merchants to ensure we are identifying the challenges and barriers to progress and delivering enhancements like tokenization for private label and card on file transactions.”

Final take
Brielle Jaekel is editorial assistant at Mobile Commerce Daily