Building Trust Beyond Financial Services

Dateline: Toronto, 8th May 2025.A Michael Miebach, the CEO of Mastercard, was interviewed by Nicolai Tangen, the CEO of the Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund (which has a stake in Mastercard), for Nicolai’s interesting “In Good Company” podcast series. The conversation turned to fraud, and Michael made a key point about the impact of fraud beyond financial losses, saying “once you’re defrauded, you lose trust in digital solutions”.Subscribe nowBanks Are The Place To StartMiebach is spot on. Financial fraud subverts the digital economy and holds back the benefits of digital business. I my view. the financial sector has a responsibility to the wider economy (and society) and it is reasonable for the economy to expect a response from the sector because raising the bar on security is not only about reducing transaction friction and costs (which we will return to later), it is about making society better. An infrastructure that is more secure is good for all of us.It seems to me that banks should create this new infrastructure because it’s not only a way for banks to save money, it’s also a way for banks to create new products and services that mean new revenue streams. In fact, it could be that security – in the form of identification, authentication and authorisation services around digital identity – is not simply an additional revenue stream in the future but that identity is bigger than payments to banks.(Indeed Mastercard is about to pilot a new service in Europe that will give banks…Building Trust Beyond Financial Services