‘Pay with a smile’: Mastercard CEO on how we will buy in the future

euronews (in English)

In this episode of The Big Question, Mastercard CEO, Michael Miebach, shares his view on the future of payments and whether Europe is prepared for AI cyber threats.

Transcript

00:00Imagine you're paying with a smile, but in an increasing digital world, you can't have large parts of the population being on the side.

00:07That's problematic.

00:14Welcome to The Big Question, a series from Euronews where we delve into the biggest topics on the business agenda.

00:22I'm Angela Barnes, and today I'm joined by the CEO of Mastercard, Michael Niebach.

00:29Michael, thank you very much for joining us on The Big Question.

00:32We have so much to talk about, including where we are today at your new Cyber Resilience Centre here in Belgium.

00:40So firstly, Michael, can you tell us about the centre?

00:43First of all, delighted to be on the show.

00:45I love the name, The Big Question.

00:47Cyber security, which is what the centre is all about, is certainly posing a lot of big questions.

00:52Our lives are all getting increasingly digital.

00:55At the same time, when we open up our social media, we read the paper or we watch Euronews,

01:01we hear about cyber threats and increasing and rising cyber threats.

01:06If you put this in context of the last five years, so back in 2018 or so,

01:12our lives were gradually digitizing.

01:16COVID comes, and there's a shock to the system.

01:19We were all locked up at home, and the usage of digital offerings had to increase

01:25because there was just no other way to run your life.

01:27And the fraudsters and scammers and hackers got very busy.

01:31So these are challenging times.

01:33And here in this centre, this is where, right behind us, there's colleagues from Mastercard,

01:39there will be colleagues from banks and from law enforcement responding to attacks,

01:43driving effective answers and make sure we're all kept safe.

01:53Do you think Europe is prepared?

01:55Do you think companies, businesses generally are prepared enough for this?

02:01So during this trip to Brussels, I come here often.

02:05The topic is very much on the agenda.

02:07The awareness is there.

02:09The efforts are there.

02:10The willingness to collaborate across the private sector and the public sector.

02:15But every day, the threats are increasing.

02:18So I'm not going to sit here and say, yeah, we're ready for this, because we're not.

02:22You will not be, but you can always try to stay a step ahead.

02:26Work on the assumption something will happen.

02:29And how will we react?

02:31And how do we minimize the impact?

02:33How do we educate?

02:34How do we do skill building?

02:36A good way to give a firmer answer on how long and how lasting of a step ahead might we create

02:42is by creating a cyber workforce across Europe.

02:45We have to do a better job to have cyber crime oriented or cyber security oriented curriculums,

02:52training efforts that are not four-year degrees, but a little more modular so we can speed up

02:57and we have the cyber workforce that will keep Europe safe.

03:07Michael, what kind of emerging trends have you been seeing?

03:09So we're seeing a whole different spectrum of attacks.

03:14There's been news coverage on attacks on critical national infrastructure, energy grid, healthcare systems.

03:22We are seeing digital identity thefts.

03:25But it comes down to individual fraudulent payment transactions as well.

03:31Very much what we're involved with on an everyday basis,

03:34where somebody is compromising your car data and using that car data to make a purchase and it's not you.

03:40So there's a whole range of threat vectors.

03:43Frequency is increasing.

03:45The severity is increasing.

03:47And it's less so a question of if something will happen.

03:50It's more so of a question is when will it happen and how prepared are we to react to it

03:55and minimize the impact and squash the attack.

03:58And this brings us right back here.

04:00The more we work together, the better your answer can be, the better defense can be.

04:04So when it comes to our money online and the evolution of digitalization,

04:09how can we be safer with our money online?

04:13Let's say you wake up in the morning and say,

04:15today I'm going to fulfill this wish and I'm going to buy this couch,

04:18an online company that will have it delivered to your house.

04:21So you want this transaction to go through.

04:23And the retailer is interested in making sure it's truly you.

04:28But we're also interested in ensuring it is actually a real transaction.

04:32It's not somebody that's used compromised car data.

04:34So there are various aspects of what could go wrong about this transaction.

04:37The consumer just wants it to go through.

04:39So if you take that kind of a scenario, what do you do?

04:42You can reduce a lot of friction and put a lot of checks in.

04:46And it gets so cumbersome that people who are not comfortable with digital tools

04:50are going to be left behind.

04:51But in an increasing digital world, you can't have large parts of the population

04:55being on the side, the elderly.

04:57And for them, it's going to be harder.

04:59The user is going to say, this is cool.

05:01I don't actually mind.

05:02And I'm going to put my data online and so forth.

05:04So they're very different habits.

05:05And one needs to ensure that it's simple, at the same time, very effective.

05:09So how do you do that?

05:10You use a set of data that runs behind the scenes.

05:13For example, let's say you make a transaction on a device, on a phone.

05:18You type at a certain speed with a certain pressure.

05:22That is data that's linked to your device that is linked to you.

05:26You can just add that along with a password.

05:28We can say, well, actually, that sounds like, that looks like Angela

05:32because she always types in this way.

05:34There's different data points.

05:35It could be geolocation.

05:36It could be any kind of additional data.

05:39If you, as the consumer, give consent for this data to be available

05:43for security checks and only for security checks,

05:47then the friction disappears because this is all in microseconds behind the scene.

05:51Your sofa will come, and it is pretty clear it is you

05:54because it was checked three times over in microseconds.

06:03As global digitalization, of course, progresses,

06:06how is inclusion being ensured so that in other countries,

06:11in Africa, for example, so that people are not left behind

06:15in, for example, digital online payments?

06:18So the general notion of inclusive growth, I think,

06:22is increasingly adopted and appreciated by a lot of companies

06:26who are saying, my business cannot thrive if we don't take everybody along.

06:30It sounds like a bit of a wishy-washy statement,

06:33but it's, in fact, very simple business logic.

06:35You're building long-term markets by pulling everybody into the digital economy

06:39and let the digital economy do what it does

06:41by producing a whole new set of business models,

06:44different ways to interact, different solutions, and so forth.

06:47If people are not participating in it, we will not unlock that promise.

06:51But if the digital skills are not there, how do you do that?

06:54You will create a digital divide.

06:56There are the people who have the skills, there are the digital haves,

06:59and the people who don't have the skills, there are the digital have-nots.

07:02That's problematic.

07:03So more focus on inclusion, pulling in and creating those skills

07:09is important that we really need to do a better job of that.

07:12So there's a set of tools and experiences that we've had.

07:16MasterCard, just us as a company, ourselves,

07:19we pulled in 850 million people into the digital economy since 2015.

07:25We have the goal to ramp it to 1 billion.

07:28We run the largest STEM education program for women globally,

07:327 million girls and young women we have put through STEM curriculum.

07:37We launched the MADE Alliance Africa,

07:40so the commitment is to pull 100 million people on the continent of Africa

07:44into the digital economy over the next 10 years.

07:46Now, that's a big commitment, and we need more of these commitments

07:49and we need partners to do it.

07:51But then the promise of the digital economy can be,

07:55well, everybody will benefit from that.

08:0430% of companies that have introduced AI has been a victim of cyber attacks.

08:12So for businesses, what are the cyber attack trends you're seeing for businesses

08:17and what knock-on effect does it have on the economy as well?

08:20Right, so first of all, the cyber crime space is a huge industry in itself.

08:29So it's grown in scale and it's significant undertakings

08:34of well-organized groups that do this.

08:36The link into AI, particularly generative AI,

08:39is going to be having profound impacts on enabling so many businesses

08:43to run a better business, to do very different things

08:47they weren't able to do before.

08:48That's exciting.

08:50On the other hand of that, you could have AI manufactured deepfakes and scams

08:55that are so hard to recognize that a small company has no chance to identify.

09:00My team has gone to lengths to demonstrate this to me as well

09:05by creating a deepfake.

09:06Was it convincing?

09:07It was very convincing.

09:08It was really good to see that because it raises the sense of urgency

09:13because people have seen what is possible.

09:15So we better get our act together and collaborate to push back on cyber crime.

09:19So there's opportunity, there's risk, as in most things in life.

09:22And I think what we need to do is take that same technology

09:25and make sure we leverage it to keep, to minimize the risk.

09:29We have about 140 billion transactions running through our network today.

09:33So how do we do it?

09:34We do it by leveraging artificial intelligence to score these transactions

09:38and say this is a good one and this one should be stopped.

09:41If you use generative AI, you can start to look ahead and predict

09:45what is likely to go wrong.

09:47So rather than saying, okay, I'm going to stop this because this threat has occurred,

09:51I'm going to predict this threat will occur and I'm going to put the offenses up

09:57because that's what generative AI can do.

09:59It can source, use all sorts of input, take a view what might go wrong.

10:03Very specific example, your car data might have been compromised.

10:08Nothing has happened yet.

10:10But there's a certain transaction pattern that now looks different

10:13than what it has in the past when only you were using it

10:16and we can stop it immediately.

10:18You cannot do this 140 billion transactions without AI.

10:21So it has tremendous potential, brings risk, but we use the same technology

10:25to keep the ecosystem safe.

10:33Just lastly, we already pay for things with our mobiles, with watches and whatnot,

10:38but looking ahead in 10 years time, what is the future of online payments?

10:41Or if they're online payments, what does it look like?

10:44Imagine you pay with a smile.

10:46Pay with a smile.

10:47How about that?

10:48Biometrics, biometric technology.

10:50So yes, you pay today with your fingerprint or with a password or whatever you do today,

10:56but we could replace whatever security really with the person

11:02and it could be a facial imprint, as simple as that.

11:06So it sounds like a nice tagline, but we've taken that live in South America.

11:12We're now taking it to Asia, and it will come to Europe at some point in time.

11:17Biometric authentication is the most secure way to do that,

11:23and it's easy and it's exciting.

11:25It takes everybody along because everybody can do that.

11:28That would be quite wonderful to pay with a smile.

11:30It would force everyone to smile a little bit more as well, wouldn't it?

11:33Yeah, you can also look stern, but either way.

11:35We'll just stick with smile, Michael.

11:37Yes, exactly.

11:38Brilliant.

11:39That's great.

11:40Thank you very much for your time and for joining us on The Big Question.

11:42It's been a pleasure to speak to you.

11:43Thank you, Angela.

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