Microsoft and Mastercard partner to announce "next-gen" identity solution

Back in 2020, Microsoft and Mastercard announced that they would be joining forces to accelerate digital commerce, empower fintech innovation, and improve financial inclusivity. Now, the duo has revealed a "next-generation" identity solution to prevent digital fraud in online commerce.

Microsoft and Mastercard logos on the left and a clipart of a person with a red question mark on top

Although both the firms haven't gone into the technical details of the implementation due to its (likely) proprietary nature, they have stated that it is an enhancement to the existing Digital Transactions Insights solution.

Improvements include real-time decision-making capabilities and next-gen authentication mechanisms. Essentially, Mastercard's network insights data is used in tandem with the data of a merchant in order to verify the identity of a customer. Mastercard's President of Cyber and Intelligence division had the following to say about the implementation:

Shopping online should be simple, quick and secure. But that isn’t always the case. We’re committed to developing advanced identity and fraud technology to help enhance the real-time intelligence we provide to financial institutions around the globe. This builds on our longstanding commitment of working across the industry to provide advanced technologies that enable trust, and help build a safe and thriving digital ecosystem for all.

Microsoft says that real-time decision-making capabilities in Digital Transactions Insights is due to integration with AI-powered Dynamics 365 Fraud Protection services. Companies can also make use of other insights provided in the solution to ensure a profitable balance between revenue opportunities and losses due to fraud and difficulties in checkout.

Microsoft's corporate vice president of Business Applications and Platforms Charles Lamanna noted that:

We are excited to partner with Mastercard to leverage our cloud-native, cutting-edge fraud assessment tools to empower issuers and merchants to prevent more fraud and approve more genuine users. This partnership lays the foundation for the future of global fraud prevention where data silos are no longer a barrier to security.

Mastercard's Digital Transactions Insights is powered by its global authentication solution Mastercard Identity Check and secured with EMV 3-D Secure protocol. Both of these implementations are GDPR-compliant, which means that global companies should be able to leverage them without regulatory hurdles.