Mastercard has unveiled a pair of open banking tools designed to improve predictability and transparency in digital account-to-account payments for merchants.
Developed by Finicity, the open banking specialist acquired by Mastercard in 2020, the Payment Success Indicator and Payment Routing Optimizer use advanced data analytics and machine learning to make the payment experience safer and smarter.
Using real-time bank account information permissioned by the consumer, Payment Success Indicator lets the payment originator — a merchant, a bank, a digital wallet, or payment service providers — assess a consumer’s balance and historical behavioural risk patterns for each transaction.
The Payment Routing Optimizer interprets that score and recommends the optimal day and payment rail (such as Same Day ACH or Next Day ACH) taking into account cost, speed and risk.
For example, if Payment Success Indicator shows that the balance for a transaction is available today but may not be in the next few days, Payment Routing Optimizer will recommend using Same Day ACH.
The tools will be generally available later in the year but Mastercard has signed up Bilt Rewards Alliance, a collection of more than two million rental homes across the US that lets renters earn points by paying rent, as one of the first partners to launch Payment Success Indicator.
Ankur Jain, CEO of Bilt Rewards, says: “Payment Success Indicator should significantly reduce the potential for returned payments, delivering a digital payment experience that works harder and smarter for everyone.”