Mastercard Targets Fake Merchants with New Trust Platform

Mastercard is stepping up its fight against scam merchants with the launch of Merchant Trust Services.

The new product is designed to stop fraudulent businesses before they ever reach consumers and is built on the company’s network intelligence and real-time analytics.

With Merchant Trust Services, Mastercard is targeting a critical gap in the payments value chain: identifying high-risk merchants early, rather than reacting after harm is done.

A fast-growing, harder-to-detect threat

The rise of scam merchants is closely tied to the expansion of ecommerce over the past five years. 

During the COVID-19 pandemic, fraudsters quickly learned how easy it was to create convincing online storefronts, complete with professional design and fully functional checkout systems.

Today, Gen AI allows scammers to produce polished websites, fake reviews and even deepfake endorsements in minutes, making it increasingly difficult for consumers to distinguish between genuine and fraudulent businesses.

The financial impact is substantial, as consumers lost US$442bn globally to online scams in 2025, according to the Global Anti-Scam Alliance.

Merchant Trust Services is Mastercard’s answer to this growing threat. The product brings together signals from across its global network – including transaction behaviour, identity data and external digital indicators – to create a more complete picture of merchant risk.

This intelligence is then used to support acquirers during merchant onboarding, helping them identify suspicious businesses before they are approved. It also enables ongoing monitoring, allowing risks to be flagged as merchant behaviour evolves.

“Digital commerce only works when people trust what’s on the other side of the screen,” says Ann Johnson, Executive Vice President of Security Solutions at Mastercard. 

“If we let scammers keep posing as legitimate businesses, we don’t just lose money – we lose confidence. We need to secure this trust for the good of the entire digital ecosystem: from consumers to banks and the honest merchants who are trying to grow.”

Real-time signals for issuers

Alongside Merchant Trust Services, Mastercard is introducing the Merchant Scam & Risk Indicator (MSRI), which extends this intelligence to issuers at the point of transaction.

MSRI provides real-time risk signals during authorisation, allowing cardholder banks to make more informed decisions and intervene earlier. 

In pilot programmes, the tool identified around 80% of risky merchants flagged by issuers – in some cases up to 90 days before formal escalation.

This earlier visibility could significantly reduce the operational burden associated with scams, from managing disputes to reissuing compromised cards.

Simon Collins, Mastercard’s Chief Franchise Officer, says: “Every bad experience online makes shoppers second-guess legitimate businesses – and that makes it harder for real merchants to win and keep customers.

“When confidence cracks, businesses pay for it in more declines, more disputes and more abandoned carts.”

Faster action, tighter standards

Technology alone is only part of the solution. Mastercard is also tightening its network rules to ensure faster and more consistent responses to emerging threats.

From July, acquirers and payment facilitators will be required to investigate suspicious merchant activity within 72 hours once certain risk thresholds are met. 

Where fraud is confirmed, merchants will be blocked from accepting Mastercard payments.

This compressed response window is designed to match the speed at which scam merchants operate – often launching, scaling and disappearing within short timeframes.

At the core of Mastercard’s strategy is the concept of a dynamic, 360-degree view of merchant trust. By combining internal transaction data with external signals, such as changes in business activity or negative online sentiment, the company aims to provide a continuously updated risk profile throughout a merchant’s lifecycle.

The goal is simple but ambitious: to embed trust directly into the infrastructure of digital commerce, rather than addressing it after the fact.

“If we want everyone to benefit from the digital economy – from a small business starting out to a family shopping online – then trust has to be built in, not bolted on after something goes wrong,” Ann continues.

“The price of convenience should never be fear.”