Mastercard Tackles Fraud with Digital Identity Tech

Mastercard operates one of the world's largest payment networks, processing billions of transactions across millions of acceptance points globally.

Yet the company's business model extends well beyond facilitating payments.

As digital commerce has proliferated and fraud tactics have grown more sophisticated, Mastercard has positioned itself as a central player in identity verification and fraud prevention – investing heavily in artificial intelligence and data analytics to secure transactions in real time.

The company's approach centres on analysing relationships between identity elements—names, phone numbers, email addresses – to build a comprehensive picture of identity legitimacy.

Rather than simply verifying that information is accurate, Mastercard's identity network examines how long data points have been associated with each other, creating patterns that distinguish genuine users from fraudulent ones.

This methodology allows verification to occur with minimal consumer friction, a crucial factor as businesses balance security requirements against user experience expectations.

Using AI, Mastercard has stopped US$50bn in fraud attacks against its network in the past three years. The figure reflects both the scale of the threat and the company's technical capabilities.

Account takeover attacks and synthetic identity fraud have surged as commerce has moved online, forcing continuous refinement of machine learning models.

Mastercard generates revenue not from issuing cards or extending credit, but from fees charged for network usage and the services it provides to partners – services increasingly centred on maintaining transaction integrity.

Building a Network of Protection

Throughout 2025, Mastercard has accelerated partnerships that expand its fraud prevention infrastructure across sectors and geographies.

In September, the company integrated its identity insights into the Entrust Identity Verification Security Platform, creating an intelligent pre-screening system that identifies threats during customer onboarding.

The integration uses machine learning to analyse user information and surface inconsistencies before fraudulent activity takes hold. By adapting verification checks to individual risk profiles, the system maintains security without imposing unnecessary barriers on legitimate customers.

An Evolving Approach to Security

The security of digital transactions is a central part of the company's operations. As more commerce moves online, methods used by fraudulent actors have changed. 

This has led to an increase in account takeover attacks and other forms of identity fraud. 

In response, Mastercard has developed tools that integrate identity and open finance solutions to detect and prevent fraud in real time.

The company utilises data analytics and machine learning to identify patterns that may indicate fraudulent activity. Its identity network analyses the relationships between different pieces of account owner data, such as a name, phone number, and email address.

According to Entrust's Future of Global Identity Verification report, 66% of organisations say that identity fraud prevention and customer experience are competing priorities.

The Mastercard-Entrust collaboration addresses this tension directly. "By combining Mastercard Identity's insights with the Entrust Identity Security Platform, we're helping enterprises move beyond reactive fraud detection," Dennis Gamiello, Executive Vice President and Global Head of Identity at Mastercard said at the time. 

"This partnership expansion enables a proactive, personalised approach that strengthens security while keeping the user experience seamless."

The Entrust partnership followed an expanded collaboration with Experian announced in June, which brought Mastercard's identity verification technology to more than 1,800 global clients across financial services, automotive, health, and digital marketing.

The integration into Experian's Ascend Platform enables organisations to assess identity, fraud, and credit risk within a single process, streamlining customer onboarding whilst targeting synthetic identity fraud and application fraud – two rapidly growing threat categories that have challenged traditional verification methods.

In August, Mastercard partnered with Alloy, a leading identity and fraud prevention platform provider, to develop an enhanced customer onboarding solution for financial institutions and fintechs.

The timing proved significant. Alloy's 2025 State of Fraud Report revealed that 60% of financial institutions and fintechs reported increased fraud in 2024, with 93% planning to invest in ongoing fraud prevention measures in 2025.

The joint solution leverages identity verification and open finance capabilities, allowing institutions to evaluate customer identities throughout the customer lifecycle.

"Fraud continues to be a significant challenge for financial institutions and consumers alike, underscoring the urgent need for robust fraud prevention measures," Dennis said at the time.

"This joint onboarding solution will be a game-changer in the fight to reduce fraud and deliver a seamless and secure customer experience."

Tackling the A2A Fraud Challenge

In July, Mastercard launched A2A Protect in the UK, responding to a surge in account-to-account payment fraud that cost UK consumers £592m (US$789.1m) in 2024.

The service addresses Authorised Push Payment fraud, where victims are manipulated into authorising payments to criminals – a particularly damaging form of fraud that exploits the speed and immediacy of modern payment systems.

A2A Protect builds on Mastercard's existing Consumer Fraud Risk platform, which has been used by 15 banks representing 90% of UK account-to-account payments since its introduction in 2023.

The Consumer Fraud Risk system contributed to a 20% reduction in APP fraud cases in 2024. The new service enhances these capabilities by providing banks with real-time AI-powered risk scores for each transaction, helping to identify and prevent fraudulent payments before funds leave victims' accounts.

It also introduces a standardised framework for dispute resolution, streamlining fund recovery when fraud occurs.

The system operates as an overlay to existing payment infrastructure, integrating Mastercard's Trace solution to harness network-wide data insights that help identify "mule" accounts used by fraudsters.

By providing both sending and receiving banks with risk scores within seconds, A2A Protect creates dual lines of defence that have proven more effective than single-point detection methods.

NatWest, Santander, and Monzo collaborated with Mastercard to develop the initiative for the UK's Faster Payments system.

Jorn Lambert, Chief Product Officer at Mastercard, framed the challenge directly: "With Fast A2A comes fast fraud, and we owe it to consumers to have their back.

"Mastercard A2A Protect delivers meaningful benefits to every participant in a transaction. It lowers operational costs for financial institutions through standardised real-time fraud insights and streamlined dispute resolution, and all participants benefit from quicker and more predictable outcomes."

The launch of A2A Protect aligned with regulatory changes as the UK's Payment Systems Regulator introduced a 50:50 liability model requiring both sending and receiving banks to share responsibility for consumer losses from APP fraud.

This regulatory shift created incentives for banks to adopt more robust prevention tools rather than managing liability after the fact.