Mastercard Incorporated MA introduced the Payment Passkey Service globally to enhance online shopping security and convenience. The service is being piloted in India, involving major payment players such as Juspay, Razorpay and PayU, prominent online merchants like bigbasket and leading banks including Axis Bank. After the pilot program in India, the service will be extended globally in the coming months.
The Mastercard Payment Passkey Service is built by integrating tokenized payment credentials with biometric authentication and leveraging industry standards from EMVCo, the World Wide Web Consortium and the FIDO Alliance to accelerate and secure the checkout process. Payment passkeys utilize device-based biometric authentication methods like fingerprints or facial recognition and eliminate the need for remembering or sharing passwords or one-time passwords (OTPs).
In order to avail the benefits of the new service, consumers can select their Mastercard at checkout or use a securely stored card with a merchant. Payment is confirmed through biometric authentication, thereby completing the transaction instantly.
Therefore, the Payment Passkey Service accelerates transactions, offers enhanced security against fraud, boosts approval rates and ultimately offers a greater peace of mind to consumers and merchants during online checkouts.
A Time Opportune Move on the Part of Mastercard
The ongoing digitization trend offers numerous benefits to merchants and consumers. But the trend to go digital often invites sophisticated methods of frauds, which compromise payments received and the confidential data of consumers. This, in turn, might lead to exorbitant costs.
OTPs, although popular for their ease of use, have become increasingly susceptible to online fraud, such as phishing, SIM swapping and message interception. The Reserve Bank of India’s Annual Report for 2023-2024 highlighted a nearly 300% surge in fraud cases over the past two years, which further substantiates the timeliness of Mastercard’s newly launched service in India.
Moreover, the country seems to be an attractive market for the tech giant to infuse greater digitization, owing to the elevated Internet penetration, increased smartphone usage and several government initiatives to boost the nation’s digital growth.
Benefits of the New Service to MA
Launching such beneficial solutions is likely to widen Mastercard’s customer base in India as well as fetch greater revenues from the increased utilization of its value-added services and solutions. This revenue component witnessed a 17% year-over-year improvement in the first half of 2024.
Mastercard Stock’s Price Performance
Shares of Mastercard have gained 14% in the past year compared with the industry’s 13.1% growth.
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MA’s Zacks Rank & Key Picks
MA currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).
Some better-ranked stocks in the Business Services space are Trane Technologies plc TT, ICF International, Inc. ICFI and RCM Technologies, Inc. RCMT. Trane Technologies sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), and ICF International and RCM Technologies carry a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) at present. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.
The bottom line of Trane Technologies outpaced estimates in each of the last four quarters, the average surprise being 8.05%. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for TT’s 2024 earnings indicates an improvement of 19.7% from the year-ago reported figure. The consensus mark for revenues implies growth of 10.6% from the year-ago reported number. The consensus mark for TT’s earnings has moved 3.1% north in the past 30 days.
ICF International’s earnings outpaced estimates in each of the trailing four quarters, the average surprise being 11.73%. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for ICFI’s 2024 earnings indicates an improvement of 8.6% from the year-ago reported figure. The consensus mark for revenues implies growth of 5% from the year-ago reported number. The consensus mark for ICFI’s earnings has moved 4% north in the past 30 days.
The bottom line of RCM Technologies outpaced estimates in three of the last four quarters and matched the mark once, the average surprise being 17.49%. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for RCMT’s 2024 earnings indicates an improvement of 10.4% from the year-ago reported figure. The consensus mark for revenues implies growth of 5.3% from the year-ago reported number. The consensus mark for RCMT’s earnings has moved 2.2% north in the past 30 days.
Shares of Trane Technologies, ICF International and RCM Technologies have gained 73.5%, 20.9% and 3.4%, respectively, in the past year.
5 Stocks Set to Double
Each was handpicked by a Zacks expert as the #1 favorite stock to gain +100% or more in 2024. While not all picks can be winners, previous recommendations have soared +143.0%, +175.9%, +498.3% and +673.0%.
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Today, See These 5 Potential Home Runs >>Mastercard Incorporated (MA) : Free Stock Analysis Report
ICF International, Inc. (ICFI) : Free Stock Analysis Report
Trane Technologies plc (TT) : Free Stock Analysis Report
RCM Technologies, Inc. (RCMT) : Free Stock Analysis Report
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The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.
