Entrust & Mastercard: Elevating identity fraud prevention

Entrust, a pioneer in identity-centric security solutions, announced an expanded partnership with Mastercard to enhance fraud prevention by integrating Mastercard Identity insights (powered by Ekata) into the Entrust Identity Verification Security Platform.

The collaboration empowers organisations to strengthen fraud detection and prevention, reduce time and costs associated with manual intervention, and streamline end-users' digital onboarding experience.

Digital First and Identity programs

Entrust is the first Engage qualified partner to offer both the Digital First and Identity programs, a significant milestone in the growing partnership. 

As fraud tactics grow in scale and sophistication, from deepfakes to synthetic identities, institutions face mounting pressure to deliver efficient fraud protection while providing a frictionless user experience.

Identity fraud prevention

Entrust and Mastercard are combating these challenges head-on by delivering intelligent pre-screening

According to the Entrust Future of Global Identity Verification report, 66% of organisations say that identity fraud prevention and customer experience are competing priorities. 

Entrust and Mastercard are combating these challenges head-on by delivering intelligent pre-screening that leverages real-time risk insights from Mastercard Identity's network to identify threats early and automate remote onboarding for customers. 

 Mastercard Identity’s insights

“By combining Mastercard Identity’s insights with the Entrust Identity Security Platform, we’re helping enterprises move beyond reactive fraud detection,” said Dennis Gamiello, Executive Vice President, Global Head of Identity at Mastercard.

“This partnership expansion enables a proactive, personalised approach that strengthens security while keeping the user experience seamless.”

Challenges in regulated and non-regulated sectors

Entrust Identity Verification directly addresses the most urgent challenges in regulated and non-regulated sectors through an innovative, multi-layered approach, including:  

• Smarter, earlier fraud prevention: Mastercard Identity insights enable organisations to separate bad actors from good users during the application process with machine learning-powered data analytics based on essential user information, such as name, phone number, address, and email address. These signals help surface inconsistencies and suspicious patterns, helping organisations detect and block threats early. 
• Faster onboarding for legitimate users: Entrust Identity Verification adapts to each user’s risk profile, allowing low-risk individuals to progress while applying additional checks only when needed. This helps to reduce drop-off rates, improving end-user conversion and satisfaction. 
• Cost-effective, risk-based verification: By automating identity verification based on real-time fraud scores, organisations can minimise manual reviews and allocate resources more efficiently. One Buy Now Pay Later provider reported a 50% reduction in application abandonment and a 60% increase in passive identity verification using Mastercard’s signals1.

How it works

During the onboarding process, users input their essential information such as name, phone number, address, and email address. Entrust Identity Verification securely processes this data and connects with the Mastercard Identity network to generate a fraud risk score.

Unlike other solutions that rely solely on authoritative data, Mastercard Identity applies a multi-layered approach that contextualises data from authoritative sources, and historical usage and applies machine learning to deliver a more comprehensive analysis. This enables the detection of unusual behavioural patterns and anomalies that signal potential fraud. 

Entrust Identity Verification routes

Based on the insights, Entrust Identity Verification routes users through the appropriate onboarding journey

Based on the insights, Entrust Identity Verification routes users through the appropriate onboarding journey. Those with low-risk scores proceed with minimal friction, while users flagged as higher risk are prompted to complete an additional identity verification step, such as a document or biometric verification. 

Businesses can customise these workflows to treat low-risk, medium-risk, and high-risk verification attempts differently, helping to automate onboarding while proactively detecting and sidelining fraudsters early in the process.

High costs and rising customer expectations

“As identity fraud is on the rise, along with high costs and rising customer expectations, collaboration is crucial,” said Minh Nguyen, Vice President of Product, Identity Verification at Entrust.

“Organisations have to adapt faster than ever, and this partnership helps ensure that they can leverage Mastercard’s insights through our platform to stay ahead of emerging threats. Together, we’re helping businesses combat fraud, reduce manual reviews, and onboard more customers with confidence – delivering both stronger protection and measurable business results.”