Mastercard and Entrust Tackle Fraud in Extended Partnership
Global cyber security solutions provider Entrust has extended its partnership with Mastercard to prevent fraud and reinforce detection.
An addition to the existing partnership sees Mastercard’s Identity insights integrated into the Entrust Identity Verification Security Platform.
The announcement comes as part of Mastercard's RiskX event, bringing together global expertise in fraud, cybersecurity and scam prevention.
Users of the Entrust platform can also benefit from a more streamlined digital onboarding process, as the integrated insights provide an advantage of reducing time and costs in comparison to a manual intervention.
Dennis Gamiello, Executive Vice President, Global Head of Identity at Mastercard comments: “By combining Mastercard Identity’s insights with the Entrust Identity Security Platform, we’re helping enterprises move beyond reactive fraud detection.
“This partnership expansion enables a proactive, personalised approach that strengthens security while keeping the user experience seamless.”
Fraud on the rise
Mastercard states that organisations are facing increasing pressure to deliver an efficient fraud protection experience in light of growing fraud tactics.
According to a recent report by Motley Fool Money, in the first half of 2025, 748,555 cases of identity theft in the US have been reported. This has increased by over 196,000 from the previous year.
Entrusts’s own Future of Global Identity Verification report states that 66% of organisations list customer experience and identity fraud prevention as competing priorities.
The extended partnership between Mastercard and Entrust aims to solve the problem of competition by offering a platform that combines intelligent pre-screening from Mastercard’s Identity network in addition to automating remote onboarding for customers.
“As identity fraud is on the rise, along with high costs and rising customer expectations, collaboration is crucial,” says Minh Nguyen, Vice President of Product, Identity Verification at Entrust.
“Organisations have to adapt faster than ever, and this partnership helps ensure that they can leverage Mastercard’s insights through our platform to stay ahead of emerging threats.
“Together, we’re helping businesses combat fraud, reduce manual reviews, and onboard more customers with confidence – delivering both stronger protection and measurable business results.”
How does the platform combine with the insights to prevent fraud?
Entrust Identity Verification is used during the onboarding process to process personal information such as phone numbers, address and names, and connects with the Mastercard Identity network to generate a risk score.
The Mastercard network utilises historical sources and other data from authoritative sources rather than using just a single authoritative source.
Machine learning is then applied to deliver a thorough analysis, enabling the detection of unusual behaviour patterns.
Through this process, insights that signal fraud are identified. The Entrust Identity Verification System signposts users to the appropriate onboarding path based on the insights.
Low-risk users benefit from a frictionless process, while high-risk users are subject to a more stringent process.
Additional verification steps are needed for high-risk users, meaning document or biometric verification.
The process can proactively detect fraud while sifting through fraudsters in the early stages.
Businesses can also customise workflows for low-risk, medium-risk and high-risk verification attempts in ways that work for them.
How fintechs are fighting fraud
Mastercard lists that one buy-now-pay-later service has already reported a 60% increase in passive identity verification using Mastercard’s signals.
Recently, Nasdaq Verafin teamed up with BioCatch to provide another global solution for fighting fraud.
The partnership also uses intelligent insights to preemptively halt fraudulent transactions.
Mastercard also recently teamed up with Monzo, Natwest and Santander to provide more payment fraud prevention in Account 2 Account payments, using an AI-powered transaction scoring system.
The UK is estimated to lose £1.8bn a year (US$2.45bn ) in fraud losses, according to Mastercard.
