Payments at the speed of life: How we’re building the instant economy

Money in transit is, ironically, money that is stalled.

In today’s digitized world, money shouldn’t have downtime: Small businesses need cash flow to take advantage of new opportunities, and consumers need to transact stress-free, knowing exactly how much money they have and accessing it immediately. To keep up with our needs — and our dreams — money needs to move faster. And it can.

Mastercard continues to play a crucial role in powering economies, from tap-and-go payments to one-click e-commerce to artificial intelligence-powered cybersecurity tools that can calculate risk and find fraud in real time, protecting billions of transactions each year.

Indeed, for nearly two decades, we’ve been pioneering real-time, account-to-account payments. Yet for cards, although it takes milliseconds — a mere tap — to authorize a transaction, it can take multiple days for the money to flow into a merchant’s account.

Now we’re scaling the instant economy with product innovations and the Mastercard Transaction Stream, our new processing technology that speeds up the life cycle of payments for consumers, merchants, issuers and acquirers. Real-time card payments will meet the needs of a faster and more complex world for today and tomorrow, freeing up capital for businesses and giving people more transparency and control over their money.

The potential is immense, with impacts across the economy.

Imagine a world where small businesses have more liquidity and same-day access to funds, enabling them to grow faster and avoid burdensome invoicing and payment delays. Financial institutions can share data in real time, enhancing the services they provide to consumers.

We envision a future where “pending” will be passé, with consumers and businesses able to get a snapshot of their true financial situation at any given moment. A future where gig workers get paid when a ride or a delivery is complete, giving them more control over their finances. Fewer people may need payday loans or face overdraft fees. And in a crisis, aid can reach those impacted by natural disasters when they need it.

We’re accelerating our journey to real-time card payments starting in South Africa, and we look forward to scaling faster card payments around the globe. And our efforts expand beyond speeding up the transaction. Based on the latest messaging standards that facilitate the transfer of more and better-structured transaction data, we can enable easier reconciliation and stronger security. Our technology is future-proofing our network, it’s been configured to enable anyone, anywhere to pay safely and seamlessly with any device, with any payment method, including card, account-to-account, person-to-person and whatever the future has in store. Real needs should be met with real-time action.

We’re meeting people where they are and moving forward together, setting new standards through what we create and how we operate and providing peace of mind with every payment. We’re innovating for the speed of life.

Jorn Lambert is chief product officer at Mastercard. Ed McLaughlin is president and chief technology officer at Mastercard.