Mastercard’s New Payment Platform Allows Users to Choose the Payment Method That Best Suits Them

Mastercard has launched One Credential, a tool that allows users to access a variety of payment methods on one digital platform. Gone are the days of fumbling through your purse or wallet to locate the card that you prefer to use while shopping at a particular brick-and-mortar store or online outlet. With One Credential, users can set their preferences to automatically select different payment methods for different types of purchases.

One Credential allows users to load multiple payment methods, provided they are from the same institution. Users can manage their payment methods online or through an app.

Consumers have no shortage of payment options these days when they transact in person and online. In addition to credit, debit, and prepaid cards, consumers can also use buy now, pay later (BNPL) options. All of these payment methods are eligible for inclusion within One Credential.

Buy now, pay later payments have exploded in popularity recently. Consumers completed 23% more of their transactions with a BNPL method from January 1 to November 20, 2024, than during the same time period in 2023, according to research from LexisNexis Risk Solutions.

Financial institutions are always on the lookout for ways to attract younger customers, and One Credential can help them in that effort. Younger consumers frequently turn to BNPL for purchases. Nearly 50% of consumers who used a BNPL product during the 12 months preceding November 20, 2024, were 34 years old or younger, per LexisNexis findings.

Mastercard’s own research reveals that 47% of consumers in Gen Z — or those born between 1997 and 2012 —  prefer to use new and innovative payment tools.

And 65% of Gen Z members desire to manage their payment preferences from one online location.

Issuers can promote One Credential’s ability to host BNPL methods to entice younger customers to try the tool. And then they can cross-sell other payment products — including credit cards — to deepen customer relationships and grow revenue. 

One Credential can help financial institutions retain more customers of all ages. Today’s shopping experience can feel disjointed when it comes to paying for your items. Not only do consumers have a plethora of options in their wallets with which to make payments — American consumers carry an average of 3.9 active credit cards — but the retail shopping experience has changed over the years. 

The growth of self-checkout adoption means shoppers have more opportunities to complete transactions without interacting with a cashier. But self-checkout options can also introduce an element of chaos to today’s in-person checkout experience. 

Depending on the configuration of a retailer’s self-checkout lanes, shoppers can feel pressure from other customers to scan their items and pay for them as quickly as possible. For this shopper, that pressure can mean I’m often paying for items with whatever card I pull out of my pocket first, not the one that earns the most rewards for a particular purchase.

While maximizing each transaction to earn the highest reward has its financial advantages, there’s something to be said for keeping it simple. Barack Obama and Mark Zuckerberg — two of the most influential figures in the world during the first quarter of the 21st century — famously embraced a simple approach to fashion in the mid 2010s. Obama and Zuckerberg both have espoused the benefits of wearing essentially the same outfit every day: It removes one decision from their day’s to-do lists. 

One Credential’s design doesn’t force users to choose between simplicity and savings when making a payment. Not only can users load multiple payment methods into the tool, they can use criteria to direct payments to pull from different funding sources.

For example, a consumer seeking to direct small purchases to their debit card and larger ones to their credit card can set their preferences to accomplish that. And consumers can select a BNPL method for purchases they want to pay back over time in installments. Giving consumers a simple way to exercise payment choice enables them to ensure they’re using the method that best suits their financial needs for each transaction.

Fashion trends come and go with changing consumer tastes. As technology evolves, consumer payment preferences shift toward tools that best meet their needs. Mastercard developed One Credential to suit the modern consumer.

“Today’s consumers expect to be in the driver’s seat,” Jorn Lambert, Mastercard’s Chief Product Officer, said in a press release introducing the solution. “That’s what sparked One Credential. It gives people an innovative way to pay that’s truly personalized to them. While Gen Z may be leading the way, the desire for personalization spans generations.”

Bunita Sawhney is the Chief Consumer Product Officer at Mastercard. In a recent interview, Sawhney said that consumers desire tools that can help them to become confident money managers.

“This is a great way for consumers to have a healthy interaction with debit and credit products,” Sawhney said.

Mastercard isn’t without competition in offering a service that allows consumers to bring multiple payment forms into one digital tool.

Visa is offering similar functionality through a tool known as Visa Flexible Credential (VFC). 

Regardless of which network an issuer partners with, solutions such as One Credential and VFC figure to produce at least two winners: consumers who value efficiency and savings and issuers seeking to offer innovative products that allow them to retain existing customers and attract new ones.