Mastercard Digital Wellness Suite Addresses Online, Mobile Payments Issues

We’ve all seen the kind of impact mobile payments can have, especially when it comes to online shopping. After all, people already on their mobile devices to shop—and pulling out the phone to shop for a couple minutes while in a doctor’s office or what have you does make its share of sense—can pay through these same devices, and that’s just efficient. Yet not every business can handle mobile payments and online shopping properly, and that’s led Mastercard to release its Digital Wellness suite, which gives businesses a leg up in ensuring the best online shopping experience.

One of the biggest problems for most online retailers is the eternal tightrope walk that is security. Too loose and data breaches hit, customers get panicky and start avoiding the breached site. Too tight, meanwhile, and customers can barely use the site, get frustrated, and start avoiding the site that’s frustrating them. That’s where the Mastercard Digital Wellness program looks to help, offering a variety of services—including a slate of security tools—that can do things like eliminate passwords and make a more consistent experience at the checkout.

The Digital Wellness tool is poised to open up to small businesses that were formerly only available for much larger ones. With so many small businesses out there likely eager to take their products and services online—if they haven’t already—such a move can really only be helpful. Not surprisingly, this news also comes with Mastercard’s widespread use of the EMVCo standard to help improve uniformity and quality of checkout as well.

Tools like these are a great leap forward for small businesses. Over the years, we’ve seen cloud-based systems make available a wide range of tools only available at the enterprise level. Though this may not solve every problem or even do that much good in the long run, the good news here is every little bit helps. With so much shopping going online these days—particularly mobile, which Statista predicted would comprise 44.7 percent of all ecommerce sales in 2019—making a better experience while keeping it safe is vital to keep customers in the fold.

Mastercard’s solution may not be a magic bullet all by itself, but it’s certainly going to advance the cause, and that’s more than worth considering in the end.