Payments to progress: Mastercard’s role in industry-wide digital transformation

How does a technology company like Mastercard collaborate with partners in different sectors and industries?

Through our technology, we enable organisations across sectors – including fintech companies, telecommunications operators, retailers and e-tailers, digital service providers, mobility platforms, food delivery companies, and travel websites – to get closer to their customers, offer more diverse services, and digitalise supply chains. Our portfolio of integrated services and solutions is generating new business, deepening customer engagement, driving loyalty, protecting digital systems, enhancing decision-making, providing insights, and creating new opportunities beyond payments.

Technology is giving consumers more choices, more personalised offers, and seamless interaction. By listening to pain points, applying our expertise and technology, and tapping into the scale and reach of our network, we’ve been developing strategic digital transformation plans that are adding value to multiple stakeholders.

Mastercard’s strategic partnership with e& is a great example of how the company’s technology and expertise can take consumer engagement to new heights. e& is forging an ambitious digital transformation journey, and we are supporting them by integrating digital payment services in a way that adds value and enhances user-friendliness. Additionally, opportunities around new smart technologies now offer unparalleled levels of customer service and elevate the user experience to new heights – in both physical, virtual and phygital worlds.

AI and 5G are advancing our problem-solving skills and we are innovating daily to build these advances into our industry-proven solutions.

What is the state of retail in the Middle East and which trends are emerging that you anticipate will shape this sector?

The region’s retail industry continues to thrive on the back of increased consumer spending, favourable demographics, improving macroeconomic factors and an ongoing tourism boom. In the UAE for example, retail spending rose 14 per cent over 12 months last year, driven by fashion, which grew 31 per cent year on year). Omnichannel payments are an essential part of offering choice and digitisation remains an integral part of success in retail. E-commerce is projected to be the fastest-growing retail channel worldwide, in position to account for approximately 24 per cent of retail sales by 2027. Over the past decade, we’ve seen an acceleration in technology adoption in retail, from digital, virtual and social commerce to contactless and even biometric checkout. In tandem with this technological surge, consumer expectations for personalisation and engaging retail experiences continue to evolve dramatically. In this respect, generative AI tools have played a key role, especially around product discovery, search functions and overall user experience.

Value hacking is another trend that is emerging as a major financial mindset, with consumers hunting for the best deals, offers, experience and service, going beyond the price tag or mere rising cost of living concerns. Essentially it’s about executing a smart approach to maximise budgets without sacrificing quality and things they want.

You recently announced a new partnership with Alshaya Group, one of the leading international retail franchise operators. Tell us about your collaboration.
We’re very excited about our multi-market partnership with Alshaya Group and to help expand Aura, its loyalty programme. One of the ways we’ll do this is by launching an Aura co-branded credit card in multiple markets over the next two years including Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar. And what that will do is help drive the growth of the retail sector across the GCC region, and also bring additional benefits to the 8.3 million Aura members, spanning over 70 brands ranging from dining to fashion, beauty and homeware.

How does Mastercard technology and solutions support customers in retail?

We know that retailers today need to understand how the ever-changing shopping experience impacts today’s consumers. Collating data is a key part of this given how important data-driven insights are to making decisions. One of the efficient tools to help drive data-driven decisions is, Mastercard’s ‘SpendingPulse’, a platform that blends historical and real-time spending patterns, providing insights and forecasts. Through visualised data, it empowers retailers to make decisions with market intelligence that measures in-store and online retail sales across all payment forms.

The innovative solution tracks channels, provides insights on sales data and also identifies key sales days and how to capitalise on them. Furthermore, it highlights trends affecting the retail industry, and spotlights outlets, areas and markets that are outperforming or underperforming. This can be valuable for multiple operational functions within retail such as when to invest in additional marketing, expansion plan, or provide consumer incentives.

You mentioned the growing role that AI is playing in retail now and in future. Is this true for other sectors too?

Absolutely. As more companies outside of traditional finance turn their attention to payments as a way to drive engagement and loyalty, the principal challenge is building new experiences that feature a range of personalised and contextualised services within the platforms to consumers. It’s also essential that we build trust in digital payments through advanced cybersecurity solutions and innovation. AI is great at identifying patterns and combatting financial crime.

At Mastercard, we continue to tap into new technologies like AI to develop new value propositions that are personalised and contextual, shaping the future of commerce, solving real problems for businesses, and making people’s lives easier.

Read: How Mastercard is driving financial inclusion in the Middle East