Mastercard has launched Open Banking for Account Opening. The programme provides a foundational set of open banking products as a core benefit to Mastercard consumer and small business debit issuers as well as consumer prepaid issuers in the US. The programme improves the digital account opening process by verifying account ownership, lowering account abandonment, reducing non-sufficient fund (NSF) returns, and minimising manual entry of payment credentials.

According to Mastercard, Gen Z mobile banking adoption continues to rise sharply at 12.4% year over year, from 20.7 million in 2020 to hit 47.8 million by 2026. To meet the demands of today’s increasingly digital world, Mastercard will provide participating US issuers who opt into the program free access to Mastercard’s Account Owner Verification, Account Detail Verification and Account Balance Check solutions when used to support digital account opening of a Mastercard branded consumer and small business debit and general-purpose reloadable consumer prepaid product.

Mastercard Open Banking draws on the safe exchange of consumer-permissioned data. This leverages industry standards and machine learning to support a seamless and secure digital account opening experience.

“Today’s digital consumer is increasingly opening bank accounts online, gravitating towards the convenience and efficiency of the experience versus more traditional manual methods,” said Silvana Hernandez, Executive Vice President, Product and Engineering, North America, Mastercard. “The Open Banking for Account Opening program provides another entry point to the digital economy through valuable and secure experiences that lean into the power of consumer-permissioned data.”