PURCHASE, N.Y.— Mastercard said it is rolling out a new set of tools aimed at helping financial institutions and payment companies identify legitimate merchants and weed out scammers before they can begin operating online or in physical storefronts.
According to a new Mastercard trend report, the company’s new Merchant Trust Services strategy combines its intelligence, cybersecurity, identity and analytics capabilities to help acquirers and payment service providers distinguish between trustworthy merchants and risky operators during the onboarding process.
Mastercard said the services are being introduced ahead of its RiskX cybersecurity conference in Singapore. The company said the tools are designed to stop fraudulent merchants from launching operations that may sell counterfeit goods, fail to deliver purchased products or function as phishing operations aimed at stealing card data.
‘Significant Downstream Costs’
According to Mastercard, scam merchants can create significant downstream costs for financial institutions, including consumer complaints, chargebacks, dispute resolution expenses and the replacement of compromised payment cards.
As part of the initiative, Mastercard said it is also launching a Merchant Scam & Risk Indicator, or MSRI, designed to provide issuers with merchant risk signals during payment authorization to support fraud mitigation efforts.
The company said that in a pilot program with one issuer, MSRI identified approximately 80% of merchants later deemed risky by the issuer, with some merchants flagged as much as 90 days before the issuer escalated concerns.
Global Rollout
Mastercard said MSRI will initially launch in Europe and the United States, with a global rollout planned later this year.
The company’s announcement comes as consumer fraud continues to rise. According to the Federal Trade Commission, consumers filed 3 million fraud reports in 2025 involving $15.9 billion in losses, up from 2.6 million reports and $12 billion in losses in 2024.
