In brief: Mastercard’s Digital Wellness program uses A.I. to make online paying safer

Mastercard wants to make paying for items online both a little easier and a little safer — and it’s using some pretty fancy tech to make that happen.
The company announced the new Mastercard Digital Wellness program, which is aimed at deploying new standards and implementing a ton of tech to enable businesses to protect their customers’ data.
As part of the new program, Mastercard plans on deploying EMVCo’s (Europay, Mastercard, Visa) standards, which includes a new click-to-pay checkout system — replacing old key-entry checkout systems and making it much easier to make purchases.
The system is compatible across systems, too — it can be used for all kinds of online shopping, multiple devices, and across cards.
According to Mastercard, research suggests that one of the biggest barriers for entry when it comes to shopping online is the unease when it comes to paying for things online, and the prospect of having to create a new user account.
Because of that, customers are far less likely to shop for things on smaller websites or with unknown retailers.
Merchants who end up enabling the new Mastercard click-to-pay tech could get a lot out of it.