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As global digital economies accelerate payment innovation, the checkout experience is undergoing a major transformation. Enhanced security measures and seamless customer interactions are redefining how merchants, payment service providers (PSPs), and issuers adopt and integrate payment technologies.
Mastercard executives Surin Fernando, Senior Vice President of Customer Solutions, Australasia, and Guida Sousa, Senior Vice President of Product Management, highlight why Australia and Brazil are leading the charge in next-generation checkout solutions.
Brazil’s Checkout Revolution: Security Meets Seamlessness
Brazil is a highly digital-savvy market where merchants recognize that frictionless experiences drive higher sales. According to Sousa, consumer demand for immediacy, security, and efficiency is shaping Brazil’s payment landscape.
One of the key innovations fueling this transformation is network tokenization, which replaces traditional 16-digit card numbers with secure tokens, rendering them useless to fraudsters. “This enhances security while streamlining checkout, aligning with global trends,” Sousa explained.
Biometric authentication is also gaining traction among Brazilian merchants, with payment passkeys emerging as a preferred alternative. “Merchants are actively integrating authentication technologies that enhance both security and ease of use,” Sousa noted.
Despite these advancements, many Brazilian merchants feel constrained in requesting technical upgrades from their PSPs. However, data suggests that over 50% of merchants are proactively seeking improvements—particularly larger retailers with deeper industry knowledge. To address this, Mastercard is working to bridge the gap between PSPs and merchants, ensuring demand for seamless checkout experiences is met with responsive solutions.
Australia’s Digital Payment Shift: Tackling Security Challenges
Australia, despite being in a separate hemisphere, mirrors Brazil in its push for digital payment innovation. However, the country faces a unique challenge: securing its highly contactless payment ecosystem.
With 99% of transactions in Australia being contactless and 70% conducted via mobile devices, digital payments dominate the landscape. However, the online checkout experience remains fragmented, leading to consumer friction and increased fraud risk.
“Our online experience is still broken in many ways,” Fernando observed. “While there is strong demand for one-click checkout, what truly surprised me was the growing interest in biometric authentication. With only 1 in 10 transactions authenticated in Australia, we are facing a billion-dollar card fraud problem that requires urgent attention.”
PSPs play a critical role in solving these security concerns. Fernando pointed out that 52% of Australian merchants have not engaged with their PSPs on technology upgrades, despite clear benefits such as improved approval rates and fraud mitigation.
One of Australia’s biggest advancements is the adoption of Click to Pay, a frictionless checkout solution that eliminates manual data entry while boosting conversion rates. “We’ve collaborated with issuers to auto-enable customers into Click to Pay, significantly improving adoption,” Fernando explained. “When combined with network tokenization and biometric authentication, this trio of innovations delivers a secure, seamless checkout experience.”
The Future of Checkout: A Unified Industry Vision
Both Sousa and Fernando agree that PSPs must be better educated on the value of emerging payment technologies.
“We need to articulate the ‘why’—why network tokenization reduces fraud, why Click to Pay increases conversion, and why biometric authentication is the future,” Fernando emphasized. “Our goal is clear: 100% tokenized transactions, 100% authentication, and the elimination of manual card entry by 2030.”
Sousa echoed this sentiment, stressing the importance of industry-wide collaboration. “Just as we collectively deployed contactless technology a few years ago, we must now rally around one-click checkout, tokenization, and passkeys.”
As consumer expectations continue to evolve, merchants, PSPs, and issuers must align their strategies to enhance both security and user experience. Whether in Brazil, Australia, or beyond, the future of checkout is fast, frictionless, and fraud-resistant—and Mastercard’s latest innovations are paving the way toward that reality.
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