Almost half of Mastercard e-commerce transactions in Europe are now tokenised, and the number of tokenised transactions has increased by over one third over the past year.

The card provider said these tokenised transactions include Secure Card on File (SCOF), Click to Pay and digital wallets. SCOF is live in 45 European countries and territories, and Mastercard said this service is helping reduce fraud and improve approval rates by replacing card numbers with merchant-specific tokens.

Click to Pay has expanded to 26 European markets, and the company said enrolments have more than doubled over the past year. Mastercard added that payment passkeys are emerging as a "breakthrough" in digital authentication, allowing users to authenticate with a fingerprint or facial recognition, which eliminates the need for passwords.

Research from the card provider found that 54 per cent of Europeans feel irritated when asked to create an account at checkout, whilst 82 per cent report some level of frustration navigating friction-heavy processes.

By replacing passwords with passkeys, securely auto-filling card details and using encrypted tokens, Mastercard said it is tackling pain points to make checkout safer and more user-friendly.

"One year into our 100 per cent tokenisation and authentication journey, Europe is gaining strong momentum," said Brice van de Walle, executive vice president, core payments Europe, Mastercard. "We're working with partners to make digital payments more secure and seamless through Click to Pay, passkeys and tokens."

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