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Trust

August 10, 2026

 

When money crosses borders, so must trust

Mastercard is calling for transparency and accountability across the payment ecosystem to help protect cross-border commerce and the larger digital economy.

A woman business owner looks at her laptop in an office full of packages.

Tine Fincioen

Executive Vice President, Digital Transformation, Mastercard

Not too long ago, many businesses were limited to serving customers across the street or across town. Today’s digital economy allows businesses of any size to reach customers across borders — a dressmaker in Delhi designing wedding gowns for customers in Dubai or Detroit, a cooperative in Colombia shipping coffee beans to Croatia. 

Each transaction relies on financial institutions, payment networks and technology providers working together in sync to ensure a seamless experience for people and businesses alike, wherever they live, however they pay or whatever they buy. In today's sophisticated global marketplace, this collaboration makes the movement of goods, services and money safe, secure and fast. 

Making this happen requires each participant in the ecosystem to share timely and accurate information. That’s particularly true when it comes to cross-border commerce. 

The expansion of digital commerce to every corner of the world has in part been aided by players called payment facilitators. As global demand for digital commerce expanded, these players made accepting payments for cross-border goods and services easier by helping international merchants establish a local presence in a market. 

In this model, when the bride in Dubai makes an online payment to the Delhi dressmaker, the transaction data is routed from the dressmaker to her payment facilitator, which relays it to the dressmaker’s bank. The information is then sent to Mastercard and on to the bride’s bank to authorize (or decline) the transaction.

But what if the information shared is not accurate? If the merchant’s true name, location and activities are not properly presented? The transaction may appear less risky and more likely to be approved by the cardholders’ bank. That creates blind spots and openings for fraud and illicit activity. It doesn’t just obscure individual transactions — it weakens the safeguards that keep the digital economy secure, eroding trust. 

Why accurate data matters

It’s critical that every payment facilitator – and not just a majority – delivers the accuracy and transparency that every participant in the payment chain expects and trust in. Moving money across borders carries with it greater risk — of fraud, default or illicit finance, such as money laundering or sanctions evasion — because the different legal, regulatory and financial systems through which the money travels can create blind spots that bad actors can exploit. Accurate transaction data, including the name of the merchant, where a merchant is located and what type of business it operates, is essential for consumers, banks, payment networks, regulators and law enforcement agencies to detect fraud and investigate illegal activity.

Bad data results in bad outcomes.  

Withholding or masking this critical transaction information handicaps the financial ecosystem's ability to comply with local rules (for instance, on highly regulated activities like gambling) and precludes banks and others involved in the transaction from appropriately weighing the risk of foul play or illicit activity. It also hinders law enforcement investigations. Finally, inaccurate transaction data feeds into algorithms that are designed to flag risk, protect the ecosystem from fraud and cybercrime and support compliance with laws and regulations locally and globally. 

The importance of data accuracy is only becoming more essential to the health, and increasing complexity, of the cross-border payments ecosystem as more intermediaries are entering the mix.  

Recognizing this importance, the Financial Action Task Force, the global money-laundering and terrorist-financing watchdog, recently identified payment facilitators as an obligated entity in the payment chain. In other words, the activity of payment facilitation between a merchant and a consumer located in different jurisdictions is subject to accurate data collection and transmission along the payment chain. 

The blind spots create openings for fraud and illicit finance. It doesn’t just obscure individual transactions — it weakens the safeguards that keeps the digital economy secure, eroding trust. 

Tine Fincioen

 

We believe global commerce should be accessible to all. Mastercard has long worked to strengthen transparency through clear standards for those who want to use our network, including bespoke programs that encourage payment facilitators to play by the rules as well as targeted enforcement for noncompliance.

Initiatives such as Mastercard's Global Reach acquiring program and Global Bridge solution put these principles into practice. The Global Reach acquiring program helps merchants expand into new markets more effectively through a streamlined framework with standardized rules that enable local acquirers to serve merchants outside their current jurisdiction. Meanwhile, Global Bridge helps merchants connect to local consumers across borders, giving them more choice at checkout and optimizing authorization requests in near real-time to help improve approval rates.  

Both help preserve the quality and integrity of transaction data that consumers, businesses, financial institutions and regulators rely on to make informed decisions and manage risk. 

Every participant in the payment chain has a role to play when it comes to safeguarding the integrity of the global digital economy. Transparency cannot be uneven, and trust cannot be optional. 

 

For more information about the Global Reach acquiring program, email global.reach.acquiring@mastercard.com. 

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