Mastercard has announced its ambition to eliminate passwords and manual card entry for online shopping across Asia Pacific by 2030.
Unveiled at the Singapore Fintech Festival, the initiative aims to make online transactions more secure and seamless through tokenisation and biometric authentication.
Over one-third of Mastercard transactions globally are already tokenised.
Scaling this across Asia Pacific, projected to be the world’s largest and fastest-growing e-commerce market worth more than US$7 trillion by 2030, will require collaboration among banks, merchants, digital wallets, and technology partners.
The company is accelerating efforts in Singapore, Malaysia, and Vietnam, targeting full tokenisation and password-free payments by 2027.
The plan builds on Mastercard’s progress in India, where partnerships with regulators, banks, and merchants have achieved near-complete e-commerce tokenisation.
“The vision is simple: no passwords, no manual card entry, no friction. By uniting the industry, Mastercard is accelerating adoption of tokenisation and payment passkeys to create a single, secure experience for password-free payments.
As a result, approval rates are rising, fraud is falling, and millions of shoppers are enjoying faster, safer checkouts. Partners who join this movement will help shape the future of intelligent commerce in Asia Pacific.”
said Sandeep Malhotra, Executive Vice President, Core Payments, Asia Pacific, Mastercard.
Digital payments are expected to account for 94% of Southeast Asia’s e-commerce transactions by 2028, valued at about US$325 billion.
Yet card-not-present fraud remains seven times higher than in-store transactions, with global losses forecast to exceed US$100 billion by 2029.
Eight in ten shoppers also abandon their carts, many citing checkout frustration. Mastercard says tokenisation and on-device biometrics can help reduce both fraud and friction.
Tokenised payments have lifted approval rates by up to 6%, adding more than US$2 billion in additional monthly sales for merchants.
Businesses benefit from faster, more secure checkouts, while consumers gain one-step payments without forgotten passwords or declines.
Digital wallets also integrate more smoothly across Mastercard’s network of over 150 million merchants.
The initiative is part of Mastercard’s broader move toward intelligent commerce, where AI, data, and connected networks power trusted transactions.
Just as payments moved from cash to digital, the next phase is from digital to intelligent.
Advances in tokenisation and authentication are paving the way for agentic commerce, where trusted digital assistants can securely shop and pay for users.
Mastercard has already launched its global Payment Passkey Service in India, partnering with major banks and merchants to enable device-based biometric checkout for millions of shoppers.
Similar solutions will be rolled out across Asia Pacific as part of its 2030 roadmap.
Featured image: Edited by Fintech News Singapore, based on image by rizkyaudymas via Freepik
