Technologies can be transformative. When directed in the right direction, they support economic growth and open up new possibilities. But let's be clear—technology is not just an application or even the end product. It is a tool that can serve as a foundation, as infrastructure, for more. Such digital infrastructure has an even greater reach when it serves to strengthen trust and ensure equal access in a commercially sustainable manner.

PROMO

 

For decades, Mastercard has been the backbone of payments in an increasingly digital world. For the most part of that time, Mastercard has been known for card payments—this is the core of what we provide to partners and clients. Just last year, we processed 126 billion payment transactions. Each of them was processed with the highest level of security. In the last three years, we have prevented potential fraud losses of $30 billion through artificial intelligence based systems that we have been building and developing for years because the world cannot be secure enough. Cybersecurity is an area where we see our strength, and we will continue to invest all resources in it. The potential we see in this is evident in the fact that we have invested over $5 billion in cybersecurity in the last 5 years.

PROMO

 

With the changing environment, as the end-users' needs for new practical and secure payments began to grow, our portfolio expanded to include a range of simple, flexible, intuitive, and secure technological solutions that people around the world associate with Mastercard. We apply fundamental principles and measures of privacy and responsible data management while challenging ourselves—and our partners—to think differently about how data can be used for more efficient business and smarter decision-making. The value of technology lies in making complex things simple. Just think about the enormous amount of data that exists. We can use technology to recognize trends and make better decisions. For example, Dynamic Yield, the FinTech we acquired, recently introduced a new platform that incorporates cumulative consumer spending insights into software to enable merchants to deliver even more personalized offers—a value recognized globally by companies such as Sephora, Decathlon, and Bershka.

Similarly, our authentication solutions use publicly available and user-approved insights to help banks, merchants and other businesses determine whether their "customer" is a genuine user or a fraud. Through such risk analysis, we actually provide partners with peace of mind and a great user experience across all transactions and other digital interactions at every stage of the customer journey.

PROMO

 

New technologies that we develop and constantly innovate bring new partnerships and open new opportunities through an agile approach and technologies that we apply such as cloud, quantum computing and blockchain. It is our responsibility to ensure that these technologies are effectively combined to solve real-world problems. The future of payments requires a strong focus on data privacy and security, including an ethical approach to the more active use of artificial intelligence. The responsibility is huge because if fundamental trust is not built, people will not accept new technologies, which can potentially weaken the future growth of the digital economy.

Our track record is what makes Mastercard a valuable and integral part of business for our partners. Our ambition is to continue to empower economies and empower people, and our solutions empower the marketplace to help us all be more resilient to everything that lies ahead.