In Australia, card-related payment fraud neared $1 billion in 2024. Mastercard suggests biometrics and other advanced security measures will help alleviate the problem by the end of the decade.
Mastercard has announced its goal to help address and reduce Australia’s $1 billion fraud issue by the year 2030. The company’s vision includes one-click biometric checkouts, numberless sustainable cards, real-time card payments, unique one-time card numbers, and single digital cards supporting multiple payment types.
As e-commerce sales in Australia hit $69 billion in 2024, the card-related fraud level reached almost $1 billion. The Australian Bureau of Statistics also found that 9.9% of Australians aged 15 years and over became card fraud victims in 2023-24, up from 8.7% in the previous financial year.
The reasons of the rising fraud levels are simple. With more payments and online purchases, there are more opportunities for fraudsters to exploit technical and individual vulnerabilities without personal contact. While many financial and e-commerce institutions lag behind in cybersecurity practices, creating exploitable security gaps, criminals are increasingly using more sophisticated methods and technology for their fraudulent schemes, making it harder for traditional security measures, not to mention consumer awareness of emerging manipulation techniques, to keep up.
Therefore, Mastercard suggests changing traditional counter-fraud measures with more novel approaches. In the next five years, the payment company plans to transform online shopping by removing the need to enter card details or passwords manually. Instead, shoppers will simply log into their bank using just their email address and a smile for identity verification, enabling secure access to their cards.
By Mastercard’s estimations, today’s average online checkout experience requires eight points of data entry and 105 keystrokes to complete. As an alternative to manually entering card details, passwords, or one-time PINs (OTPs), the firm offers secure email lookup protected by biometrics.
To make this happen, all new Mastercard cards in Australia will use Payment Passkeys that replace one-time passwords (OTPs) with face or fingerprint ID. Cards will also be set up with Click to Pay, a fast and secure way to check out online. It lets people pay using just their email, with fewer steps and keystrokes. At the same time, Mastercard plans to discourage local businesses from saving plain card numbers, which are often stolen by hackers, driving online fraud rates seven times higher than their in-store counterparts.
Another part of Mastercard’s vision is the concept of numberless cards, which would further reduce the risk of fraud in case a card is lost or stolen. Thus, the company plans to remove the traditional 16-digit number from the front of physical cards in Australia, securing it within banking apps instead. This initiative is supposed to substitute existing cards, which expose sensitive details, by the end of the decade.
Mastercard also envisions the new secure cards to be made entirely from sustainable materials, combining stronger fraud protection with a reduced carbon footprint. The company aims to phase out all its cards made of unsustainable substances (such as new PVC plastic) by 2028. Besides, the new cards can be personalised with custom artwork in users’ digital wallets.
Numberless cards don’t show customers’ card numbers, expiry dates, or CVV, thus reducing the risk of fraud if it’s lost or stolen. The card number is stored digitally and replaced with a secure token. A unique cryptogram (like a digital signature) is created for each transaction, making it nearly impossible to duplicate or misuse.
As the credentials are saved within users’ banking apps, they become ultimate payment control towers, ensuring that sensitive data stays within financial organisations they chose to trust with their financial information rather than every other merchant database. The company representatives believe this approach is “empowering people with complete control over their payments – from how they share their data, to how they pay and get paid, and even how their cards look.”
Apart from greater security, this technology enables innovative payment use cases such as generating one-time card numbers for separate occasions, like free trials or subscriptions. Users get full control to set spending limits per transaction, define specific stores, countries, payment types or retail categories where the card can be used.
Additionally, with Mastercard One Credential – a single digital identity that works across devices and payment types – clients can choose ways a purchase is paid for: from debit, credit, instalments, or prepaid account, depending on the situation (like amount or location), and it happens automatically.
The firm will also enable real-time payments on its network in Australia, meaning money can move from the buyer’s tap to the seller’s bank account almost instantly, improving cash flow and visibility.
