In this episode of The Big Question, Mastercard CEO, Michael Miebach, shares his view on the future of payments and whether Europe is prepared for AI cyber threats.
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00:00Imagine you're paying with a smile, but in an increasing digital world, you can't have large parts of the population being on the side.
00:07That's problematic.
00:14Welcome to The Big Question, a series from Euronews where we delve into the biggest topics on the business agenda.
00:22I'm Angela Barnes, and today I'm joined by the CEO of Mastercard, Michael Niebach.
00:29Michael, thank you very much for joining us on The Big Question.
00:32We have so much to talk about, including where we are today at your new Cyber Resilience Centre here in Belgium.
00:40So firstly, Michael, can you tell us about the centre?
00:43First of all, delighted to be on the show.
00:45I love the name, The Big Question.
00:47Cyber security, which is what the centre is all about, is certainly posing a lot of big questions.
00:52Our lives are all getting increasingly digital.
00:55At the same time, when we open up our social media, we read the paper or we watch Euronews,
01:01we hear about cyber threats and increasing and rising cyber threats.
01:06If you put this in context of the last five years, so back in 2018 or so,
01:12our lives were gradually digitizing.
01:16COVID comes, and there's a shock to the system.
01:19We were all locked up at home, and the usage of digital offerings had to increase
01:25because there was just no other way to run your life.
01:27And the fraudsters and scammers and hackers got very busy.
01:31So these are challenging times.
01:33And here in this centre, this is where, right behind us, there's colleagues from Mastercard,
01:39there will be colleagues from banks and from law enforcement responding to attacks,
01:43driving effective answers and make sure we're all kept safe.
01:53Do you think Europe is prepared?
01:55Do you think companies, businesses generally are prepared enough for this?
02:01So during this trip to Brussels, I come here often.
02:05The topic is very much on the agenda.
02:07The awareness is there.
02:09The efforts are there.
02:10The willingness to collaborate across the private sector and the public sector.
02:15But every day, the threats are increasing.
02:18So I'm not going to sit here and say, yeah, we're ready for this, because we're not.
02:22You will not be, but you can always try to stay a step ahead.
02:26Work on the assumption something will happen.
02:29And how will we react?
02:31And how do we minimize the impact?
02:33How do we educate?
02:34How do we do skill building?
02:36A good way to give a firmer answer on how long and how lasting of a step ahead might we create
02:42is by creating a cyber workforce across Europe.
02:45We have to do a better job to have cyber crime oriented or cyber security oriented curriculums,
02:52training efforts that are not four-year degrees, but a little more modular so we can speed up
02:57and we have the cyber workforce that will keep Europe safe.
03:07Michael, what kind of emerging trends have you been seeing?
03:09So we're seeing a whole different spectrum of attacks.
03:14There's been news coverage on attacks on critical national infrastructure, energy grid, healthcare systems.
03:22We are seeing digital identity thefts.
03:25But it comes down to individual fraudulent payment transactions as well.
03:31Very much what we're involved with on an everyday basis,
03:34where somebody is compromising your car data and using that car data to make a purchase and it's not you.
03:40So there's a whole range of threat vectors.
03:43Frequency is increasing.
03:45The severity is increasing.
03:47And it's less so a question of if something will happen.
03:50It's more so of a question is when will it happen and how prepared are we to react to it
03:55and minimize the impact and squash the attack.
03:58And this brings us right back here.
04:00The more we work together, the better your answer can be, the better defense can be.
04:04So when it comes to our money online and the evolution of digitalization,
04:09how can we be safer with our money online?
04:13Let's say you wake up in the morning and say,
04:15today I'm going to fulfill this wish and I'm going to buy this couch,
04:18an online company that will have it delivered to your house.
04:21So you want this transaction to go through.
04:23And the retailer is interested in making sure it's truly you.
04:28But we're also interested in ensuring it is actually a real transaction.
04:32It's not somebody that's used compromised car data.
04:34So there are various aspects of what could go wrong about this transaction.
04:37The consumer just wants it to go through.
04:39So if you take that kind of a scenario, what do you do?
04:42You can reduce a lot of friction and put a lot of checks in.
04:46And it gets so cumbersome that people who are not comfortable with digital tools
04:50are going to be left behind.
04:51But in an increasing digital world, you can't have large parts of the population
04:55being on the side, the elderly.
04:57And for them, it's going to be harder.
04:59The user is going to say, this is cool.
05:01I don't actually mind.
05:02And I'm going to put my data online and so forth.
05:04So they're very different habits.
05:05And one needs to ensure that it's simple, at the same time, very effective.
05:09So how do you do that?
05:10You use a set of data that runs behind the scenes.
05:13For example, let's say you make a transaction on a device, on a phone.
05:18You type at a certain speed with a certain pressure.
05:22That is data that's linked to your device that is linked to you.
05:26You can just add that along with a password.
05:28We can say, well, actually, that sounds like, that looks like Angela
05:32because she always types in this way.
05:34There's different data points.
05:35It could be geolocation.
05:36It could be any kind of additional data.
05:39If you, as the consumer, give consent for this data to be available
05:43for security checks and only for security checks,
05:47then the friction disappears because this is all in microseconds behind the scene.
05:51Your sofa will come, and it is pretty clear it is you
05:54because it was checked three times over in microseconds.
06:03As global digitalization, of course, progresses,
06:06how is inclusion being ensured so that in other countries,
06:11in Africa, for example, so that people are not left behind
06:15in, for example, digital online payments?
06:18So the general notion of inclusive growth, I think,
06:22is increasingly adopted and appreciated by a lot of companies
06:26who are saying, my business cannot thrive if we don't take everybody along.
06:30It sounds like a bit of a wishy-washy statement,
06:33but it's, in fact, very simple business logic.
06:35You're building long-term markets by pulling everybody into the digital economy
06:39and let the digital economy do what it does
06:41by producing a whole new set of business models,
06:44different ways to interact, different solutions, and so forth.
06:47If people are not participating in it, we will not unlock that promise.
06:51But if the digital skills are not there, how do you do that?
06:54You will create a digital divide.
06:56There are the people who have the skills, there are the digital haves,
06:59and the people who don't have the skills, there are the digital have-nots.
07:02That's problematic.
07:03So more focus on inclusion, pulling in and creating those skills
07:09is important that we really need to do a better job of that.
07:12So there's a set of tools and experiences that we've had.
07:16MasterCard, just us as a company, ourselves,
07:19we pulled in 850 million people into the digital economy since 2015.
07:25We have the goal to ramp it to 1 billion.
07:28We run the largest STEM education program for women globally,
07:327 million girls and young women we have put through STEM curriculum.
07:37We launched the MADE Alliance Africa,
07:40so the commitment is to pull 100 million people on the continent of Africa
07:44into the digital economy over the next 10 years.
07:46Now, that's a big commitment, and we need more of these commitments
07:49and we need partners to do it.
07:51But then the promise of the digital economy can be,
07:55well, everybody will benefit from that.
08:0430% of companies that have introduced AI has been a victim of cyber attacks.
08:12So for businesses, what are the cyber attack trends you're seeing for businesses
08:17and what knock-on effect does it have on the economy as well?
08:20Right, so first of all, the cyber crime space is a huge industry in itself.
08:29So it's grown in scale and it's significant undertakings
08:34of well-organized groups that do this.
08:36The link into AI, particularly generative AI,
08:39is going to be having profound impacts on enabling so many businesses
08:43to run a better business, to do very different things
08:47they weren't able to do before.
08:48That's exciting.
08:50On the other hand of that, you could have AI manufactured deepfakes and scams
08:55that are so hard to recognize that a small company has no chance to identify.
09:00My team has gone to lengths to demonstrate this to me as well
09:05by creating a deepfake.
09:06Was it convincing?
09:07It was very convincing.
09:08It was really good to see that because it raises the sense of urgency
09:13because people have seen what is possible.
09:15So we better get our act together and collaborate to push back on cyber crime.
09:19So there's opportunity, there's risk, as in most things in life.
09:22And I think what we need to do is take that same technology
09:25and make sure we leverage it to keep, to minimize the risk.
09:29We have about 140 billion transactions running through our network today.
09:33So how do we do it?
09:34We do it by leveraging artificial intelligence to score these transactions
09:38and say this is a good one and this one should be stopped.
09:41If you use generative AI, you can start to look ahead and predict
09:45what is likely to go wrong.
09:47So rather than saying, okay, I'm going to stop this because this threat has occurred,
09:51I'm going to predict this threat will occur and I'm going to put the offenses up
09:57because that's what generative AI can do.
09:59It can source, use all sorts of input, take a view what might go wrong.
10:03Very specific example, your car data might have been compromised.
10:08Nothing has happened yet.
10:10But there's a certain transaction pattern that now looks different
10:13than what it has in the past when only you were using it
10:16and we can stop it immediately.
10:18You cannot do this 140 billion transactions without AI.
10:21So it has tremendous potential, brings risk, but we use the same technology
10:25to keep the ecosystem safe.
10:33Just lastly, we already pay for things with our mobiles, with watches and whatnot,
10:38but looking ahead in 10 years time, what is the future of online payments?
10:41Or if they're online payments, what does it look like?
10:44Imagine you pay with a smile.
10:46Pay with a smile.
10:47How about that?
10:48Biometrics, biometric technology.
10:50So yes, you pay today with your fingerprint or with a password or whatever you do today,
10:56but we could replace whatever security really with the person
11:02and it could be a facial imprint, as simple as that.
11:06So it sounds like a nice tagline, but we've taken that live in South America.
11:12We're now taking it to Asia, and it will come to Europe at some point in time.
11:17Biometric authentication is the most secure way to do that,
11:23and it's easy and it's exciting.
11:25It takes everybody along because everybody can do that.
11:28That would be quite wonderful to pay with a smile.
11:30It would force everyone to smile a little bit more as well, wouldn't it?
11:33Yeah, you can also look stern, but either way.
11:35We'll just stick with smile, Michael.
11:37Yes, exactly.
11:38Brilliant.
11:39That's great.
11:40Thank you very much for your time and for joining us on The Big Question.
11:42It's been a pleasure to speak to you.
11:43Thank you, Angela.