Mastercard wants everyone to have a digital wallet and mDL to make ID like payments

Online ID verification causes friction for customers more often than not, yet identity theft makes up 40 percent of Europe’s online fraud. Digital identity can work simply and deliver trust like payment cards, however, says Mastercard.

The EU Digital Identity Wallet is in part a recognition of this issue, according to a post by Mastercard EVP for Services Europe Michele Centemero, who sees an opportunity for digital ID to work more like his company’s forte, digital payments.

Mastercard supports the EUDI Wallet program as an advisor to the EU’s NOBID project, and a partner in the WE BUILD Consortium. The payments giant’s work with the EU’s Large-Scale Pilots compliments its work to integrate card-based payments into EUDI Wallets and harmonize strong customer authentication (SCA), Centemero writes. One of the possible advantages of this integration is building attribute checks, such as for age or country of residence, into payment transactions.

The company is also working on related international standards, such as those overseen by the FIDO Alliance and EMVCo.

Mastercard is also certified to the UK Digital Identity and Attributes Trust Framework (DIATF) as an orchestration service provider.

“Through ongoing investments in biometric authentication, AI-powered fraud detection and privacy-by-design solutions, we’re helping build the confidence Europe needs to lead in the digital age,” Centemero concludes.

mDLs are for everyone

Mastercard is also working on mobile driver’s licenses (mDLs) to go in those digital wallets. Mastercard Director of Product & Service Design Leonard Botezatu noted on a recent episode of Dock’s Identi3 podcast that he has joined the mDL Connections working group to contribute to “enhancing the educational dimension of mDLs from a product design standpoint.”

David Kelts, co-chair of the Secure Technology Alliance’s mDL Jumpstart Committee also joined Dock Labs CEO Nick Lambert in the discussion. He notes that at 5 million issued, mDLs now represent a large enough addressable market to be worth the work to accept them. The mDL Jumpstart Committee’s work on the mDL Connection resource is part of its work to raise adoption, which could eventually include half of the U.S. population.

Botezatu says being able to address those people, along with the ones across the Atlantic holding credentials built to the same standard, makes mDLs the natural step to follow “federated solutions” and ID document checks.

“To solve the fragmentation problem an international standard like the mDL ISO was needed. So from my point of view, standards drive harmonization, leading to a more kind of cohesive and accessible digital identity,” he explains. “This is the high level context in which a global company adopting an international standard like the mDL ISO has a huge benefit.”

Article Topics

biometrics  |  digital ID  |  digital wallets  |  Dock  |  EU Digital Identity Wallet  |  identity orchestration  |  ISO 18013  |  Mastercard  |  mDL (mobile driver's license)