Global: Mastercard taps open banking for digital account opening

Mastercard has unveiled a digital account opening tool that uses open banking to integrate customer verification with identity insights into a single API.

Open Banking for Account Opening verifies a consumer’s account ownership and their identity in real-time. It also prefills account and routing data to minimise errors.

The result, says Mastercard, is a simpler, faster, and safer way to open a new account for the 93% of consumers likely to use digital payments this year.

The system draws on the safe exchange of consumer-permissioned data from open banking and identity data network using industry standards, machine learning, and fraud prevention programs.

This helps fintechs and banks know who their customers are and that they own their linked accounts, promoting secure digital account opening for digital wallets, bank and investment accounts, distributions, and account-based payments.

Jess Turner, EVP, global open banking and API, Mastercard, says: “Digital account opening is central to onboarding new customers and growing a business.

“Mastercard is uniquely positioned to help fintechs and banks onboard customers safely and seamlessly to accelerate growth while protecting themselves and consumers from the risks of fraud and false declines.”