This shift in consumer behaviour will be powered safely and securely by the MasterCard Digital Enablement Service (MDES), which enables every commerce device to make payments through industry-standard tokenisation.

Since 2013, MasterCard has worked with issuers and merchants to build the foundation of secure digital payments, ensuring consumers have the highest level of safety and security, no matter how they pay. MDES gives cardholders the choice and peace of mind to make more secure digital payments from a variety of connected devices through a tap, touch or click.

The launch of Apple Pay in the UK last summer incorporated MDES to create and deliver digital MasterCard cards into Apple’s digital wallet. This will be followed by Samsung Pay and Android Pay when they arrive in the UK, giving consumers the option to digitise their MasterCard cards across different devices.

Today card issuers and wallet service providers have MDES projects in progress in 18 countries across Europe. MDES already connects banks representing more than 70% of UK account holders to Apple Pay.

“As the payments ecosystem shifts from plastic to digital and consumers choose to pay with a variety of gadgets and devices, MDES offers safety and security across the entire spectrum, ensuring banks, retailers, and consumers have access to the safest way to pay across continents,” said David Dechamps, head of Digital Payments Europe at MasterCard.
Jill Thornton, Senior Change Manager at MBNA, added, “We’re one of the first to offer payments across the wave of new digital wallet providers - and working with MasterCard on MDES has enabled us to extend this choice of payment methods. We’re able to offer secure digital payments and we continue to invest heavily in giving our customers greater choice and convenience in how they pay.”
MasterCard is also making it easier for issuers and merchants of all sizes to gain access to tokenisation services with MDES Express and MDES for Merchants. MDES Express streamlines the contracting process between financial institutions and digital payment services. MasterCard partners - digital wallet providers, device manufacturers, card on file merchants and other digital payment providers - now have a simple contractual framework to engage with all participating banks.

Following MDES Express, MasterCard announced the MasterCard Digital Enablement Services for Merchants, a solution for eCommerce merchants that helps them minimise fraudulent transactions and associated costs, reduce the risks and costs associated with storing card numbers, and has the potential to improve approval rates.

The platform is also being used to deliver payments to a wide array of consumer products across the automotive, fashion, technology, and wearables categories, giving consumers the freedom to shop using the device that is most convenient to them, with the highest level of security available.

At Mobile World Congress 2016, MasterCard and Coin announced a developer program for accelerating the integration of payments into wearables that significantly reduces the barrier to entry for device manufacturers. Developers now have access to MDES and Coin’s proprietary technology for enabling payments in a scalable way.