• Mastercard has rolled out the “Payment Success Indicator” and “Payment Routing Optimizer” tools to improve efficiency and minimize the risk of processing open banking payments. The tools were developed by Mastercard’s subsidiary Finicity and should be available in the US during the year. 

• The Success Indicator assesses the risk of payment completion by leveraging user-permissioned account information such as account balance and history. Bilt Rewards Alliance, a rental homes platform that lets users earn points by paying rent, is one of the first FinTech partners to use this solution. 

• The Routing Optimizer identifies the optimal day and payment rail for payment completion, based on several factors such as account cost, speed, and risk (leveraging data from the Success Indicator).

• Mastercard is a global payment and card services company that enables safe transactions for consumers, small and medium businesses (SMBs), large enterprises, and governments. MasterCard supports transactions in around 150 currencies with over 35 million acceptance locations (point-of-sale and online) across 210 countries.

<ul><li> Analyst QuickTake: Mastercard and Visa have been using acquisitions to expand their open banking offerings. Earlier this month, Visa completed the acquisition of Tink , a Swedish open banking infrastructure provider. Mastercard itself acquired Danish company Aiia in September 2021 to complement the Finicity acquisition (November 2020).</ul>