Mastercard has unveiled a significant enhancement to its Payment Passkey Service, designed to bring ease and security to online payments through biometric authentication. Announced at the Singapore FinTech Festival, the service now allows users to complete transactions with on-device biometric methods like facial recognition or fingerprint scans, mirroring the simple, secure process of unlocking a smartphone.

By combining the security of tokenization, the convenience of passkeys, and a streamlined guest checkout feature enabled by Click to Pay, Mastercard aims to eliminate the need for traditional passwords and one-time passcodes (OTPs) across devices, browsers, and operating systems.

The service’s upgraded functionality also benefits consumers shopping online without requiring them to create accounts or save their payment information with merchants. Through biometric authentication, users can now experience a quick, easy, and secure guest checkout, simplifying the online purchase process and reducing cart abandonment. This not only enhances the customer experience but also drives higher conversion rates for merchants while providing them with improved fraud protection. Issuers, in turn, benefit from increased customer trust and Mastercard’s top-of-wallet status.

This milestone follows Mastercard’s global rollout of biometric-enabled Payment Passkey Services in India in August and subsequent expansions across key markets. The service has already gained considerable momentum with online merchants, and Mastercard plans to continue its global scaling efforts as leading banks, payment processors, and merchants embrace the new technology.

Sandeep Malhotra, Executive Vice President of Products & Innovation for Asia Pacific at Mastercard, explained that the company aims to bring the same seamless experience of contactless payments to the digital world. “With biometric authentication, shoppers are spared from the hassle of cumbersome checkouts, while merchants enjoy the combined benefits of speed and security,” he stated, highlighting Mastercard’s commitment to transforming the online checkout experience.

The Mastercard Payment Passkey Service offers multiple benefits. Payment passkeys ensure a smooth, efficient checkout process, eliminating the need for customers to wait for banking apps or notifications, which can be frustrating when connectivity is limited. This streamlined experience helps merchants reduce cart abandonment and increase sales by facilitating quick, reliable transactions. Enhanced security is also central to the service, as biometric authentication eliminates the risk of compromised passwords, safeguarding shoppers from fraud and scams and freeing merchants to focus on customer care and trust-building rather than worrying over payment security.

Amid rising cyber threats, Mastercard’s new service responds to growing concerns around password vulnerability, as traditional OTPs and passwords are increasingly exploited in phishing and fraud schemes. The Payment Passkey Service replaces these outdated methods with a more secure, faster system, protecting credentials from interception by fraudsters. Importantly, Mastercard’s tokenization of payment and biometric data ensures that no sensitive information is shared with third parties, rendering the data inaccessible to cybercriminals and enhancing overall security for both consumers and merchants. This latest advancement underscores Mastercard’s dedication to innovating the digital payment landscape for a safer, more efficient future.