Mastercard Acquires Ethoca to Address eCommerce Chargebacks

A new development in the payments industry is generating intrigue as Mastercard^® acquires Ethoca™.

This new collaboration is sure to impact everyone in the payments ecosystem, including cardholders, issuers, acquirers, and merchants.

The Latest Addition to Mastercard’s Cyber Strategy

Ethoca is the most recent addition to Mastercard’s extensive and robust suite of fraud management products. The company’s technology helps merchants and card issuers collaborate in real time to effectively resolve customer disputes.

Mastercard will combine Ethoca with its current security activities, data insights, and artificial intelligence solutions.

A Logical Partnership with Anticipated Benefits

As Mastercard acquires Ethoca, a logical partnership is formed. Ethoca’s CEO, Andre Edelbrock admits, “Mastercard is a natural home for Ethoca.”

Ethoca is a legacy service provider in the payments industry, serving as a frontrunner in the fight against chargebacks and fraud. The effectiveness of their prevention alerts product has earned the company industry-wide prestige.

Ethoca’s prevention alert product is dependent on a unique network of more than 5,000 merchants and 4,000 card issuers. It’s this network that Mastercard is interested in accessing and scaling.

Ethoca has already built a suite of services upon this network to compliment the original prevention alerts product. Mastercard likely has similar intentions.

The card network recently launched the Mastercard Dispute Resolution Initiative, a multi-phase process that will be implemented over the next few years. As part of the initiative, Mastercard has promised to “bridge the communication gap between cardholders and merchants” through “the implementation of a collaboration layer.”

Mastercard’s acquisition of Ethoca could be part of this new collaboration effort.

“It’s encouraging to see that Mastercard is making intentional efforts to create a long-term solution for payment disputes.”

— Robert Painter, Director of Chargeback Management at Kount

“This acquisition is exciting,” said Robert Painter, Director of Chargeback Management at Kount. “The implications will likely be significant. It’s encouraging to see that Mastercard is making intentional efforts to create a long-term solution for payment disputes.”

The press release announcing Mastercard’s purchase of Ethoca can be found here.