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Mastercard has unveiled A2A Protect, a global service designed to strengthen consumer protection for account-to-account payments, launching first in the UK market where such fraud cost consumers £592 million last year according to UK Finance data.
The payment technology company is collaborating with Monzo, NatWest and Santander to develop and deploy the service across UK Faster Payments, with implementation planned for later in 2025. The initiative addresses growing fraud concerns as billions of consumers increasingly adopt A2A payments for various transactions from peer-to-peer transfers to bill payments and retail purchases.
Currently, 15 banks representing 90% of UK account-to-account payments utilise Mastercard's AI-powered Consumer Fraud Risk (CFR) transaction scoring service. Since its 2023 introduction, CFR has contributed to a 20% reduction in Authorised Push Payment fraud cases during 2024.
The A2A Protect service combines fraud prevention technology with a dispute resolution framework, initially focusing on APP fraud before expanding to cover scenarios involving goods and services payments in subsequent phases.
Jorn Lambert, Chief Product Officer at Mastercard
Jorn Lambert, Chief Product Officer at Mastercard, said: "With Fast A2A comes fast fraud, and we owe it to consumers to have their back. Mastercard A2A Protect delivers meaningful benefits to every participant in a transaction. It lowers operational costs for financial institutions through standardised real-time fraud insights and streamlined dispute resolution, and all participants benefit from quicker and more predictable outcomes. Most importantly, consumers can feel reassured they have the appropriate protection when making account-to-account payments."
The service operates across five key areas: enhancing transaction scoring capabilities, leveraging Mastercard's Trace solution to identify suspicious accounts, providing standardised fraud reporting, establishing consumer protection frameworks, and introducing uniform dispute resolution procedures through Mastercard's centralised platform.
The UK's Payment Systems Regulator has already introduced a 50:50 liability model for APP fraud, with Mastercard's service designed to complement these regulatory measures. The initiative aligns with the UK government's National Payments Vision for modernising account-to-account payment systems.
Salim Secretary, Head of Payment Schemes, Partnerships and Commercial at NatWest, commented: “We are driving innovation and working closely with Mastercard to help our customers. This new initiative will help protect customers and merchants.”
Paul Horlock, Chief Payments Officer at Santander
Paul Horlock, Chief Payments Officer at Santander, stated: “The alignment of capabilities and security across payment channels is critical to enable choice and protecting consumers. We see this Mastercard initiative as a promising addition to the evolving landscape of A2A payment utility and security.”
Andy Sacre, Head of Payments at Monzo
Andy Sacre, Head of Payments at Monzo, said: "Collaboration and information sharing are essential to fight fraud, which is why we're working with Mastercard to build a tool that gives banks access to industry-wide data to help them spot suspicious transactions. We're already using cutting-edge technology to detect and stop criminals in real time and A2A Protect will enhance our work even further, giving us more insights to stay one step ahead of fraudsters and keep our customers safe."
As a global solution, A2A Protect functions as an overlay to existing account-to-account transactions, enabling application across any A2A payment regardless of the payment initiation mechanism.
