Written by: Eric Bank
Edited by: Lillian Guevara-Castro
Reviewed by: Adam West
Key Takeaways
- Experian now integrates Mastercard’s Identity Insights as part of its Ascend Platform to support smoother sign-ups with lower risk of fraud.
- Identity verification plays a key role in credit decisions, legal compliance, and earning customer trust.
- Smart tools and streamlined processes deter fraud without discouraging legitimate customers.
Experian and Mastercard are working together to make identity checks easier, identifying impersonations, and validating sign-up processes to remain smooth and seamless for legitimate customers.
By streamlining identity checks and making it easier to spot fraudulent applications without creating friction for real customers, the partnership helps subprime lenders reduce default risk, improve onboarding efficiency, and stay compliant with evolving Know Your Customer and Anti-Money Laundering regulations.
Now, more than 1,800 organizations in a range of industries, including banking, car sales, and healthcare, can use Mastercard’s Identity Insights in Experian’s Ascend Platform to help prevent fraud and cybercrime. The joint solution brings ID verification, fraud detection, and credit information under one platform.
This comes at a time when the demand for ID verification tools is high. Ninety-six percent of business leaders confirm that checking identity is a key issue, but 27% of them say their tools make things worse for legitimate users.
Internet firms lost almost $48 billion in 2023 from cyber scams. And with online payment now the norm, entities are racing against time to stay one step ahead of impersonators.
Why Identity Verification Matters to Lenders
“When acquiring new customers, our clients want a frictionless process where both ID and fraud, as well as credit risk, can be assessed as part of a single request that streamlines and speeds the customer experience,” said Greg Wright, Executive Vice President of Identity and Fraud at Experian Software Solutions.
The data from Mastercard bears it out: 92% of companies are buying fraud tools, and ID verification is their highest priority — even more than other tech security protections.
Just like many larger organizations, smaller ones have yet to adopt advanced tools like multifactor authentication or even biometrics.
These help meet regulations like Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML). By centralizing ID, credit, and fraud data, a bank can reduce manual effort and make faster decisions.
Tools That Help Protect and Foster Customer Trust
Mastercard’s platform authenticates common information like names, email addresses, and phone numbers. “We believe signing up for electricity should be easy,” said Laura Persson, General Manager at OhmConnect Energy, in Experian’s press release about the bureau’s latest move.
The need to validate identity is not just limited to banks. Store merchants, health centers, and power and utility organizations need to make fast and secure decisions about potential customers as well.
Mastercard framed identification checking as a protection against fraud as well as an avenue of further growth by making sign-up convenient solely to legitimate customers.
Some merchants who used guest-checkout ID checks saw sales increase by 40%. In fact, 51% of businesses using AI applications indicate these have already improved the accuracy of their fraud detection. Technology is rapidly becoming a must-have as a majority of corporations claim AI is crucial to detecting fraud.
Simplifying Checks on Identity
Some businesses say their ID systems turn away good customers. Experian’s approach is running signals in the background, so you won’t have to jump through a lot of hoops. AI helps by spotting fresh tricks of fraud at an early point and decreasing how often you have to verify your data.
This is a big advantage for small firms that lack the money or staff to create their own systems. They can have one simple-to-operate system with advanced fraud prevention. Fifty-seven percent of small firms forecast ID checks will become harder, but many have yet to upgrade their tools.
Fraud is increasing rapidly in regions like Brazil and India as well. Those areas require tools that can work across many digital systems. Experian’s worldwide plan can potentially fill that demand.
The Experian–Mastercard partnership is now live in the U.S. and the UK and will cover other countries soon. It will facilitate an environment under which registration will become faster and safer — without making it easier for scammers to slip through.
