Mastercard’s Open Banking Connect enabled for Lloyd’s credit card holders

By Megha Bhattacharya

Lloyds Banking Group today announced that Mastercard’s Open Banking Connect service is now enabled for credit cardholders of the Banking Group’s brands including Halifax, Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Bank itself. The development will allow cardholders to pay their credit card bills via their mobile app and withdraw funds directly from their choice of account.

Kelly Devine, Divisional President for UK & Ireland at Mastercard said, “Offering innovative, convenient and secure ways for people to pay is what we all strive for at Mastercard, and our Open Banking solutions bring together the best both card and account to account payment rails. Lloyds customers can now pay down their credit card balances directly from an account of their choice.”

According to Lloyds, customers can initiate a PISP (Payment Initiation Service Provider) payment using Mastercard’s Open Banking Connect system, thus enabling them to securely pay their credit card balance.

Elyn Corfield, MD Consumer Finance, Lloyds Banking Group said, “We are constantly looking for new ways to offer our customers security, choice and convenience and this partnership with Mastercard allows us to do just that. We want to make it quick and easy for our customers to pay their credit card bills in just a few clicks, safe in the knowledge that their payments are completely secure.”

Mastercard stated that its Open Banking Connect provides third party service providers with a single, universal connection to financial institutions’ open banking functionality regardless of their API standard or implementation. For a financial institution, it also provides reassurance thanks to the secure authentication features that establish and maintain connectivity with high levels of resilience.

Recently, Mastercard and CleverCards joined forces in a bid to expand the adoption of digital cards across Europe as well as simplify the payments value chain. CleverCards will be utilising Mastercard’s core digital platform – Digital Enablement Service and integrating its processing and services capabilities into their platform.