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Mastercard Inc. released Smart Subscriptions, a service to help issuers provide subscription-management tools to their cardholders. In related news, Recurly Inc., a subscription-services provider, released its consumer software subscription benchmark report.
The Smart Subscriptions service builds on Mastercard’s Subscriptions Control product, released in 2023, to provide spend analysis, a way to categorize expenditures, and present personalized offers. Subscriptions Control enables a way to identify and unsubscribe from recurring payments via a bank’s app and online access.
Smart Subscriptions is in U.S. testing now and relies on open-banking technology from Finicity, a Mastercard unit. The white-labeled service is payment- and network-agnostic, Mastercard says, adding that any bank can use the service, not just Mastercard issuers.
“Financial institutions can drive loyalty, increase engagement, and reduce chargebacks, while consumers benefit from a simple interface that unlocks greater visibility into their financial wellness and access to personalized insights and offers,” Mastercard says.
The move comes as the subscription industry braces for the possibility of a Federal Trade Commission regulation to ease the unsubscribe process. Some observers in the “Taking the Measure of Click to Cancel” story in the March issue of Digital Transactions suggest it may be better to plan for the rule.
Mastercard says the new subscription tools will provide consumers detailed payment history, a look at upcoming bills, and subscription-cancellation methods.
In related news, Recurly says consumer-software subscriptions increased 71% in 2023 from 2020. It also says this segment, which includes the likes of AllTrails, SitterCity, Life360, and Blinkist, had an overall churn rate of 4%.
