Why open banking and ecommerce are a match made in heaven

March 16, 2023 | Louise Basse

The way we shop and pay has evolved dramatically over the past few decades and the demands of consumers are higher than ever. To explore why open banking payments offer such a big opportunity for the ecommerce space, we sat down with Katharina Luschnik who’s Head of Payments Solutions at Aiia, a Mastercard company.

Reduce fraud, increase opportunities

Open banking payments are a win-win for merchants and consumers. While lowering costs, reducing fraud and increasing conversions for merchants, open banking payments offer consumers greater choice, convenience and transparency.  

“Open banking payments are extremely powerful for the ecommerce space because it enables PSPs and merchants to fully rely on the underlying banking rails. In other words, open banking is one simple API integration from a bank directly to a PSP or a merchant,” explains Katharina Luschnik and points out that open banking payments by nature also reduce the potential of fraud as there are fewer integrated parties involved.  

“Paytrail is an excellent example of a player that has already taken advantage of open banking payments in Europe – and on a more global scale, JP Morgan which is known for processing billion of payments in the US, also announced that the company will implement open banking payments powered by Mastercard. I view that as a clear proof point that payment providers also see a huge potential and benefit in open banking payments.

Building quality is key to success

Despite the fact that some of the biggest payment providers in the world have already implemented open banking payments, Katharina Luschnik believes we have only seen the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the major potential of open banking payments in the ecommerce space.

She points out that open banking payments offer great new use cases such as subscription payments and recurring payments, which will accelerate even more in 2023:

“A lot of merchants have a big interest in variable recurring payments (VRP) because it generates even more flexibility for the consumer. And that will of course give open banking a huge momentum across the European markets,” Katharina Luschnik explains and continues:

“This year, we expect a lot of combined achievements from Mastercard and partnering banks to provide outstanding quality. We’re continuously working with our network to constantly improve the consumer experience to get the outstanding payment experience we need,” she concludes. 

Are you curious to learn more about how you can build customer-centric payment solutions with open banking? Download our latest payment report and see how you can win the eCommerce space with open banking payments.