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Mastercard Brings Payment Passkey Service to Latin America

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Mastercard Incorporated (MA - Free Report) recently teamed up with Brazil's leading events platform, Sympla, and a prominent Latin American payments orchestrator, Yuno. With the help of the partners, MA’s Payment Passkey Service will make its debut in the Latin America region. Initially, this groundbreaking solution will be provided to the users of Sympla and Yuno, with plans for a broader rollout to follow. 

The Payment Passkey Service utilizes Mastercard’s tokenization technology, which substitutes the primary account number with a secure token. This ensures that no card data is shared with third parties, rendering it unusable to fraudsters and scammers in the event of a data breach. 

Notably, the popularity of payment passkeys is owing to its hassle-free usage. The service allows shoppers to select their Mastercard during checkout with Click to Pay or choose a securely stored card on a merchant's platform. Payment confirmation is completed through authentication using device-based biometrics, such as fingerprints or facial recognition features. Once authenticated, the transaction is seamlessly processed. 

Therefore, the MA solution simplifies e-commerce transactions and enhances the online shopping experience. This approach not only speeds up the checkout process but also provides greater protection against fraud and cyber threats. It also fetches benefits to e-commerce businesses in the form of higher conversion rates and reduced cart abandonment. The debut of Mastercard Payment Passkey Service is thereby likely to enable the tech giant to capitalize on the expanding retail e-commerce market of Latin America.

MA’s Steadfast Efforts to Reduce Frauds in a Booming Digital World

The ongoing digitization trend offers numerous benefits to merchants and consumers.  However, the trend to go digital often invites sophisticated methods of fraud, which compromise payments received and the confidential data of consumers. This, in turn, might lead to exorbitant costs.

Payment passkeys eliminate the need for traditional authentication methods like one-time passwords (OTPs) in case of online transactions. This seems commendable since OTPs are increasingly susceptible to scams like phishing, SIM swapping and message interception. This August, Mastercard introduced the Payment Passkey Service globally and its pilot launch took place in India. 

Mastercard's research indicates that 90% of global consumers view biometrics as more safe and convenient than passwords. A 2023 survey conducted in Latin America found that 85% of respondents favor biometric authentication over traditional passwords for online transactions. Such consumer sentiment further demonstrates the timeliness of Mastercard’s recent move in the region.

Moreover, concurrent with the recent announcement, Mastercard undertook yet another move to support financial institutions, payment service providers, acquiring banks and merchants across Latin America in tackling payment fraud while maintaining a seamless customer experience. It joined forces with Equifax (EFX - Free Report) as a result of which enhanced fraud prevention tools, including Mastercard Identity, Ethoca Alerts and Ethoca Consumer Clarity, are now accessible to MA business clients in Latin America through Equifax's Kount Payment Fraud solution.

Benefits of the Solution Launch to MA

Introducing such a beneficial solution in Latin America is expected to expand Mastercard’s customer base across the region while driving higher revenues through increased adoption of its value-added services and solutions. This revenue component reported 17% year-over-year growth during the first nine months of 2024.

Mastercard Stock’s Price Performance & Zacks Rank

Shares of Mastercard have gained 27.1% in the past year compared with the industry’s 27.7% growth. MA currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). 

Zacks Investment Research
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Stocks to Consider

Some better-ranked stocks in the Business Services space are Parsons Corporation (PSN - Free Report) and RB Global, Inc. (RBA - Free Report) . While Parsons sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), RB Global carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) at present. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

The bottom line of Parsons outpaced estimates in each of the last four quarters, the average surprise being 17.49%. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for PSN’s 2024 earnings indicates an improvement of 40.7% from the year-ago figure. The consensus mark for revenues implies growth of 24.2% from the year-ago number. The consensus mark for PSN’s earnings has moved 1.2% north in the past 30 days. 

RB Global’s earnings outpaced estimates in each of the trailing four quarters, the average surprise being 16.31%. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for RBA’s 2024 earnings indicates an improvement of 11% from the year-ago figure. The consensus mark for revenues implies growth of 13.8% from the year-ago number. The consensus mark for RBA’s earnings has moved 3.8% north in the past 30 days. 

Shares of Parsons and RB Global have gained 56.6% and 54.7%, respectively, in the past year.


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