In line with the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) directive, mandating card-on-file (COF) tokenisation for merchants, Mastercard on Tuesday announced that it has enabled over two lakh online merchants of all sizes across the country with card-on-file tokenisation.
The company has worked with over 45,000 merchants, 34 issuing banks, 10 acquiring banks and 30 plus token requestors (including all major payment aggregators), as well as services providers to create 90 million tokens for Mastercard cardholders since December 2021
Secured payment
Card-on-file tokenisation, as mandated by the RBI, replaces sensitive payment credentials of cardholder such as card number and expiry date with an alternate number which is called token. It inhibits entities in the transaction value chain from collecting and saving cardholders’ details, providing an additional layer of security that enhances consumer confidence and trust. Tokenisation gives cardholders, peace of mind that they can make secure, digital payments without having to worry about online payment fraud.
Additionally, Mastercard’s collaboration with payment aggregators such as Juspay, PayU, Razorpay, BillDesk and Paytm have already enabled countless merchants to process token-based transactions. The number of merchants adopting tokenisation is expected to increase further in the run up to the RBI’s September 30 deadline.
Mastercard has been encouraging all merchants and payment aggregators to save their card details and tokenise their cards by August 1, 2022.
Core tenets
“Mastercard is pleased to help facilitate the timely roll out of card-on-file tokenisation in India. Security, reliability, and convenience are the core tenets of a robust digital payment ecosystem. Tokenisation brings these tenets to life by ensuring the security of cardholder data without compromising the convenience and ease of online shopping. It also helps merchants to enable a ‘one-click’ checkout experience, ensuring fast, seamless transactions for cardholders. Mastercard is supportive of the RBI’s mandate, which will empower the larger merchant community and millions of cardholders to make rapid strides towards a less cash economy,” said Nikhil Sahni, Country Corporate Officer, India & Division President, South Asia, Mastercard.