Mastercard pilots subscription management tool

Mastercard has launched an Open Banking-powered subscriptions management solution in the US, which provides consumers with insights into their individual spend analysis, expenditure categorisation and personalised offers.

‘Smart Subscriptions’ is a white-labelled, payment- and network-agnostic solution, enabling financial institutions to plug it straight into their consumer banking applications.

Currently being piloted in the US, Mastercard’s Smart Subscriptions connects multiple accounts into one central hub using Mastercard’s Open Banking technology, provided by its US Open Banking arm Finicity.

According to a survey by Mastercard, 73% of consumers indicated they would be interested in a tool that helps them identify, track, cancel, or renew subscriptions, while 60% of consumers trust their bank with such a tool.

The new solution uses Mastercard ‘Subscription Control’, which it introduced in 2023 to enable consumers to cancel, pause and resume their subscriptions.

“No matter how many services you pay for, managing those recurring subscriptions should be simple and seamless,” said Raj Seshadri, president of data and services at Mastercard.

“Smart Subscriptions acts on that insight, meeting the standards for effortless engagement that both banks and consumers demand. And when those standards are met, the true metric of success is loyalty.”

Mastercard anticipates that Smart Subscriptions will become available in other markets later this year.

Recently, Mastercard Open Banking introduced the ‘Open Banking for Account Opening’ program in the US, which is a new benefit program for its consumer and small business debit issuers, as well as prepaid issuers in the US.