MasterCard Keeps Its Promise To Developers

“At the end of the day, no one can predict where the industry is headed. You can read some trends; you can figure out maybe how things will look in the next six months…but you will always have some disruptive company popping up from anywhere in the world.” 

– Sebastien Taveau, Chief Developer Evangelist, MasterCard

Last week, MasterCard made a formal declaration of its commitment to developers, technology, and the ecosystem of payments and commerce. MPD CEO Karen Webster spoke with Sebastien Taveau, Chief Developer Evangelist, Open API Initiative at MasterCard, to find out the reasoning behind the company bringing attention to its dedication in the way that it did, its strategies in following through on that stated commitment, and how the company’s open APIs are being received in the developer world.

There were two primary motives in MasterCard making its “Developer Declaration,” Taveau tells Webster. Firstly, because MasterCard is a technology company that has been “really pushing the envelope” in innovation, he says, it is important for the company to fully commit to creating that innovation and fostering an environment that enables it.

Beyond that, says Taveau, a company putting forward the kind of programs that MasterCard is — such as the Developer Zone, Masters of Code, partnerships for incubation, and partnerships with large FinTechs (as well as with developers) to create and foster startups — has to make it abundantly clear that its intentions are, first and foremost, to create a community from which will arise “the next generation of commerce apps.” It’s about inclusion at the ground floor.

“The declaration,” says Taveau, “has been very well received.”

One reason for that, he believes, is that the statement wasn’t something that was created by MasterCard in a vacuum. Rather, as Taveau tells Webster, the company built upon its experience in operating a number of developer programs, gathering feedback and input from developers and partners. Once the company knew what worked and what needed to be changed or added, only then was it ready to lay out its strategy.

“What we wanted to do with that declaration,” continues Taveau, “was really help both MasterCard and the developer understand where we were going to focus, and make sure any feedback that we received was taken into account and [expressed in writing].”

Becoming the preferred partner of developers everywhere, Taveau shares, requires a commitment that starts right at the top of the organization.

With the support of an executive team like MasterCard’s team, adds Taveau, fostering and creating a community of forward-thinking innovators becomes much easier. “The MasterCard executive team,” he said, “is really committed to innovation, supportive of and working towards opening the company’s technology to third parties, as well as creating and possibly combining new and different services.”

By making its commitment to the developer community, Taveau says the company is ensuring that whoever comes up with “the next big thing” will have MasterCard in mind as a key supporting provider, perhaps to foster their expansion beyond the country and beyond their own platform…maybe even a bit beyond the payments sphere itself.

“That’s what we’re really committed to [with the] the MasterCard Developer Declaration,” attests Taveau. “To provide all these opportunities to developers so they can really focus on creating the best experience.”

While all of the APIs that MasterCard makes available to developers for them to do just that can be found at developer.mastercard.com, Taveau tells Webster that the company tries to focus on three main segments: “Providing technology for the payments side of an application; for the security side; and for the data needed to [make] the experience more enjoyable for the user.”

Within the three main categories of APIs, notes Taveau, different ones have different roles. Some may be focused on accepting payment online, some may be related to services within a wallet, some are related to fraud and risk management, and still others can be applied to help merchants better understand their customers’ preferences and to act upon them in some way.

“We have different sets of data that we can expose to developers,” says Taveau. “We really just need to work and be in touch with them — which is what we’re doing through API events and hackathons — [to understand what their needs are].”

“Then, we can go back internally at MasterCard and start pushing to get some of these new applications to be made available to developers.”

Applications that are strongly influenced by feedback that developers give MasterCard. According to Taveau, a lot of this very important feedback pertains to preferred programming language, as well as the developer’s vision for future implementation of particular devices, be that mobile, POS, or, remarks Taveau, “different supporting elements of any form of commerce transaction.”

“When you get feedback and understand,” he continues, “‘OK, here’s what we need if we want to program something and be able to [bring] it to market, and here’s what you have.’ When you start bridging these elements, you understand pretty fast what needs to happen, and when it can happen.”

Taveau describes developers as “a great source of information,” attuned both to the technology as well as to the preferences of consumers.

When asked how MasterCard decides how much of its platform to open versus how much is kept closed and proprietary, Taveau sees everything moving toward what he describes as a “collaborative economy.”

“No one can do it alone,” he said, noting the value of collaborating with third parties.

He explains to Webster that, while in some instances MasterCard may not have made the particular API that a developer seeks, “that doesn’t preclude us [from going and talking] to third parties or partners [to] see if we can actually integrate their APIs into our platform, or maybe create a bridge between our APIs so a developer can find the right solution.”

While acknowledging that it is true that some APIs will be restricted — either by regulations or by other aspects — and will remain for use only by MasterCard and key partners, Taveau attests that the company is currently in the process of sorting through a lot of different APIs to decide which ones could best serve the larger ecosystem if opened up to developers.

It’s about making a choice between direction of the industry in the short term and where it’s going in the long term, Taveau tells Webster. To assist in that decision-making process, one has to talk to developers to understand what they need, then go back and “be the voice of the developer with your own company,” and try to find an internal solution. If that doesn’t work, Taveau recommends talking to partners outside of the company.

At the end of the day, Taveau measures the success of the various developer initiatives that are underway at MasterCard by asking three questions:

– Are you growing your developer community?

– Is your developer community satisfied with the service you’re providing?

– What is the feedback that’s provided and how do you act on it?

He adds that “from a member point of view, you look at the number of registered developers, you look at the number of production flows… And, again, you always try to grow the offering, the APIs that are made available. Because when you do that, that means you are solving more and more problems that developers may be finding along the way.”