Safe Hands: Peter Schmeichel teams up with Mastercard to help Brits ditch manual card entry
Mastercard has teamed up with goalkeeping legend Peter Schmeichel to help accelerate the UK’s shift to Click to Pay, a more secure, faster and simpler way to buy online.
In a new film, the former Man Utd and Denmark keeper encourages Brits to embrace the new payment method, where passkeys, biometrics and trusted devices replace passwords and long card numbers. It comes as new Mastercard research reveals the UK is home to Europe’s most safety‑conscious online shoppers, with 82%1 using biometrics and other security features such as one-time passcodes and chargebacks for unauthorised purchases.
The study also shows that Brits are ahead of the game on e-commerce – with consumers doing more than a quarter of their spending online (28%)2 against a European average of 22% – while more than half (55%) regularly use digital payment methods such as digital wallets and open banking1.
Mastercard is halfway towards its 2030 goal of phasing out manual card entry online across Europe and moving to payments based around a process called tokenisation. For Click to Pay, this means UK shoppers will no longer have to enter their 16-digit card number when paying online – something 9 in 10 revealed they had done last year – and these details will no longer be shared with merchants. Instead, the transaction will be represented by a secure digital token – meaningless if stolen – and consumer payments can be authorised with a one-time passcode, passkeys or biometrics.
“The future of payments should feel more like a tap‑in, not an overhead kick" said Peter Schmeichel. “Click to Pay means no more fumbling for cards or mistyping numbers — just a smooth, secure way to buy online.”
“UK shoppers are already leading the way in payment security, and this will help us transition to faster, more intuitive and more secure ways to pay,” said Simon Forbes, Division President, UK and Ireland at Mastercard. “Those who move now will help shape a more seamless digital payments experience for the decade ahead.”
Notes to Editors
Tokenisation replaces 16-digit card numbers with fraud‑proof tokens, protecting both shoppers and retailers. Passkeys go further, enabling checkout via fingerprint, face ID or a trusted device — no passwords, no data entry, no friction.
1 UK results on adoption of payment security methods and digital payment preferences come from Mastercard’s Digital Payment Index report, an annual report focused on the digitalisation of consumer payments.
Consumers were asked: Which of the following payment security/identification methods for payments have you heard of? Scores represented both knowledge and adoption of the methods
Methods were: Changing spending limits on my card; Remotely ‘locking’ my card account so it can’t be used to spend money; Changing my secure login information such as my PIN or passcode; Confirmation/use of one-time passcodes sent by SMS when making a payment; Phone notification in case of a suspicious transaction on my card or accounting/post-pay; Setting restrictions or permission on foreign usage of cards; Refund process for unauthorised purchases; Entering a password; Fingerprint scanning; Entering PIN code; Facial recognition [recognizing you by scanning your face]; Entering ID code or one-time password sent via SMS or bank app
Consumers were asked: Which of the following payment methods do you find most convenient for making payments online?
Methods were: Account to Account; BNPL/Retail financing; Carrier billing; Digital Wallet; Invoicing/post-pay; Pre-Pay; Other
2 ONS data on UK internet sales as a percentage of total retail sales (average from December 2024-November 2025)
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