MasterCard, The Clearing House strike tokenization deal

In an agreement with MasterCard, The Clearing House will provision and manage MasterCard-branded tokens on behalf of banks. The agreement paves the way for The Clearing House to offer fully compliant tokens for transactions over the MasterCard network.

The partnership with MasterCard establishes The Clearing House as one of the first MasterCard-certified third-party token service providers to enter the U.S. market, and allows The Clearing House to support current and future token capabilities ranging from mobile payments to remote purchases and Internet-of-Things transactions, according to a press release.

The Clearing House has been a long-time participant in tokenization. Its solution conforms with the card industry's EMVCo framework and fully complies with the MasterCard Token Service Provider Standards, which were initially published in August 2016.  

"The safety and security of payments is paramount to TCH and our owner banks, and was a core rationale for our initial token work stemming back several years," Dave Fortney, executive vice president of product development and strategy at The Clearing House, said in the release. "We are excited to partner with MasterCard to provide issuer optionality and functionality for token services."