Tencent integrates Mastercard’s payment biometrics for cross-border mobile commerce

Mastercard’s Click to Pay, which relies on biometric authentication and transaction tokenization, is coming to Tencent’s cross-border payment system MIDAS, used for its full portfolio of online entertainment content, including popular mobile games such as PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG).

Tencent plans to use the technology for its MIDAS ecosystem (Mobile International Direct Acquisition Service), which serves digital entertainment businesses and their users. A part of the ecosystem is Midasbuy, a third-party recharge store which allows gamers to top-up credits for games such as PUBG Mobile, Honor of Kings, Age of Empire Mobile and more.

The Chinese technology giant says that the international payment service is used by tens of millions of players to pay for games made by 30 different gaming companies.

“This collaboration sets a new benchmark for digital commerce in one of the world’s most dynamic industries,” says Mastercard Asia Pacific Executive Vice President for Core Payments Sandeep Malhotra.

Click to Pay is designed to streamline online shopping by allowing customers to skip the manual entry of card details. Instead, Mastercard uses tokenization technology that replaces passwords and card numbers with random numbers, or tokens, for each transaction, as well as on-device biometrics.​

The payments giant is targeting the complete replacement of manually entered credit card details with biometrics and tokenization for online purchases by the end of the decade. Payment methods have evolved significantly in Asia over the past decade, and Mastercard sees biometrics and tokenization as well on their way to replacing physical payment cards completely.

Online shoppers can choose to pay with Mastercard’s Click to Pay or a card stored in the merchant’s system and then confirm payments with biometric authentication through on-device fingerprint or facial scan.​

​Mastercard and Tencent MIDAS have previously collaborated on fraud management and marketing promotions.

“By combining Tencent’s consumer insights with Mastercard’s security expertise, we are setting new standards for digital payments and supporting sustainable growth in the global digital economy,” says Gang Li, executive of Tencent MIDAS.

Article Topics

biometric authentication  |  biometric payments  |  biometrics  |  digital payments  |  ecommerce  |  Mastercard  |  Tencent  |  Tencent Midas  |  tokenization