MasterCard To Charge New Fee For Token Usage

MasterCard is rolling out new “digital enablement” fees that will compensate the brand for an expected increasing use of tokens.

The fees, described in MC bulletins reported on by Digital Transactions News, “comes at a time when MasterCard is ramping up its Digital Enablement Service, a new platform that facilitates identification and verification of cardholders, and generates tokens or data packets for use by issuers and so-called digital wallet operators that link to a card’s primary account number (PAN). Unlike PANs, tokens are generally useless to data thieves. Customers of issuers using MasterCard’s service will be able to use their mobile devices for purchases through mobile applications, online, or at the point of sale,” the story said.

Starting Sept. 1, the fee will be 10 cents per PAN, billed monthly, as well a 50-cent fee every time a smartphone is provision with a token and 2.5 cents for calls to its “alternate network application programming interface,” according to the Digital Transactions News report. An acquirer-side “Digital Enablement” fee will kick in Jan. 5 “and will be 1 basis point, or 0.01% of volume, billed weekly. The fee will apply to ‘select cardholder not present transactions’ on consumer and commercial credit cards and signature-debit cards.”

The story also reported that MasterCard “will increase its existing Acquirer Brand Volume Fee by 1 basis point to 0.12% of volume, also effective Jan. 5. The increase will apply to all signature-debit charge volume and all consumer and commercial credit card volume under $1,000.”