Mastercard's Click to Pay comes to more Canadian sellers

Checking out purchases online can be a hassle. According to Mastercard, 40% of Canadians still prefer to use guest checkout, where they have to manually enter personal payment information each time. But as many as 38% admit this "process is pain," and one in four Canadians will abandon an online shopping cart because of a slow or complicated checkout process.

Mastercard's solution is bringing its Click to Pay tech to more Canadian merchants. Canadian Tire, Mark's, and Sport Chek just joined a growing list of major online retailers in Canada (including Pizza Pizza, Lowes, Roots, and many others), enabling their customers to click to pay. This tech brings secure, password-free online checkout by mirroring the checkout process in physical stores where one terminal accepts all cards. On the merchant side, it offers a smoother digital checkout experience that helps lower shopping cart abandonment. You can find out more details here.

Mastercard Canada testing latest technology to simplify consumer purchases through Chatbot conversations

By Sonya Davidson

You may have heard about Mastercard's Identity Check payment system that is being used to prove consumer identity online beyond passwords and fingerprints. It uses smart devices and biometrics through facial recognition to enable payments in authenticating purchases. Recently at DX3 in Toronto, the company showed trade show attendees a hands-on look at the latest technology for retailers. We had a tour with Jason Davies, VP of Digital Payments at Mastercard, who walked us through the new technology in efforts to simplify and engage consumers. 

Along side seeing how Mastercard's Identity Check worked, we were also introduced to Chatbots experience that is now being tested with banks and retaiilers to help personalize customer service and purchases. The Artificial Intelligence bots will allow consumers to message, manage finances and make transactions through a messaging platform.

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Mastercard and Gates Foundation bring mobile banking to East African farmers via feature phones

Mastercard, along with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, announced the launch of 2KUZE, a digital platform that connects smallholder farmers, agents, buyers and banks in East Africa. 2KUZE enables farmers to buy, sell and receive payments for agricultural goods via their feature phones, bringing the benefits and security of mobile commerce to farmers in the region.

2KUZE is currently being piloted in Nandi Hills, Kenya, in partnership with Cafédirect Producers Foundation, a nonprofit organization working with 300,000 small holder farmers globally.

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MasterCard’s MasterPass simplifies online shopping

It’s been a banner year for online shopping in Canada as the industry experienced 20% growth in online sales in 2015. The combined online share sales in November and December of last year totaled 9.84%, according to MasterCard SpendingPulse. Both months bested last year’s 8.6% record as online sales in November reached 9.7%, the highest in Canadian e-commerce history; that is until December came in a retail sales climbed up to 9.9%.

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