Mastercard has entered into a strategic partnership with digital fraud detection and protection platform, Vesta, to boost risk and fraud management solutions for merchants in the Asia Pacific region.

The collaborative effort will see Mastercard integrate its Cyber & Intelligence products and services with Vesta’s transaction guarantee platform, lowering ecommerce fraud costs for merchants and allowing them to approve more transactions.

APAC-based Mastercard merchants will have access to full fraud protection before, during and after transactions, as the solutions provide a more secure and streamlined digital payment experience for consumers.

“The partnership with Vesta is a great example of Mastercard’s commitment to building strategic relationships with key players across the payments and technology ecosystems,” Karthik Ramanathan, Senior Vice President, Cyber & Intelligence, Asia Pacific at Mastercard, said.

“Mastercard is excited to have the opportunity to work together and deliver on the cybersecurity needs of its customers in Asia Pacific, making the region’s digital economy safer, more seamless and secure.”

The partnership comes at a time the total global cost of ecommerce fraud for merchants is expected to exceed US$48 billion this year, rising by US$7 billion in the last year. The study from Juniper Research also found the APAC region accounted for 22 per cent of the world’s fraud.

“We are honored to partner with Mastercard to innovate in the cyber and intelligence domain,” Shabab Muhaddes, Vesta SVP and GM APAC, said.

“Through this strategic partnership, merchants will benefit from one integration into Vesta’s decision engine to approve more legitimate transactions with zero fraud chargeback liability, allowing them to focus on growing sales and improving customer experience without the fear of fraud.”

The solution will be made available to merchants in the next three months.