Mastercard Launches CVC-Less Card Payments in India

Mastercard has launched a payment experience in India in which debit and credit cardholders no longer have to enter the three-digit code from the back of the card when making online purchases.

With these new Cardholder Verification Code (CVC)-less payments, cardholders need only enter the code once with merchants who adopt tokenized payments, Mastercard said in a Thursday (Aug. 3) press release.

For the second and subsequent transactions, cardholders won’t have to key in the CVC, according to the release. Instead, they can select their tokenized card on the checkout page, confirm a one-time password and complete the transaction.

“Mastercard is committed to delivering innovative and secure payment solutions that protect both merchants and consumers,” Anubhav Gupta, senior vice president, South Asia at Mastercard, said in the release. “Besides enhanced data security, CVC-less payments on tokenized cards come with benefits that make the online domestic card payment experience smoother and safer.”

This new payment solution is designed to reduce checkout times, eliminate hassles and improve security, according to the press release.

Mastercard’s token-based transactions leverage enhanced security features, authenticated user identity check and domain control, the release said.

Among the eCommerce companies that have already adopted CVC-less payments are Cashfree Payments and Zomato, per the release.

“We are excited to introduce CVC-free payments, which reduce friction for cardholders, aligning their payment experience with other popular modes like UPI Intent,” Cashfree Payments CEO and Co-founder Akash Sinha said in the release.

Zomato Chief Financial Officer Akshant Goyal said in the release: “CVC-less payments have indeed enabled quicker completion of transactions and enhanced convenience for our customers, without compromising on the security of payments.

Mastercard reported in its most recent earnings materials that Click to Pay transactions surged in the second quarter, rising 70% year on year as the technology has now gone live across 30 markets.

The payments network has been scaling its Click to Pay functionality to streamline and improve the guest checkout experience, Mastercard CEO Michael Miebach said July 27 during the company’s quarterly earnings call.

Mastercard Click to Pay lets customers pay securely without having to manually enter their card details at each checkout or provide a username and password.