Mastercard Acquires Subscription Management Service Minna

Mastercard agreed to acquire subscription management service Minna Technologies.

The deal aims to ease the frustration consumers feel when dealing with subscription services, according to a Tuesday (Oct. 1) press release.

“Consumers who want to modify, extend or cancel a subscription, occasionally struggle to find ways to do it easily,” the release said. “Additionally, card payment blocks, a solution often used when frustrated consumers call into their banks, can impede the ability of businesses to reengage consumers.”

Minna’s “payment-scheme agnostic” services let consumers manage subscriptions within their banking applications and websites, according to the release. Minna works with some of the world’s largest financial institutions.

“These teams and technologies will add to the broader set of tools that help manage the merchant-consumer relationship and minimize any disruption in their experience,” the release said. “At the end of the day, all of us involved in subscriptions — merchants, financial institutions, payment networks and others — can collectively create a win-win approach for each of us and most importantly for the consumer.”

The PYMNTS Intelligence report “The Replenish Economy: A Household Supply Deep Dive” revealed the prevalence of subscriptions, especially among younger Americans.

Thirty-nine percent of millennials rely on retail subscriptions for their day-to-day shopping needs, followed by 38% of bridge millennials, 31% of Generation Z subscribers, 24% of Generation X consumers, and 17% of baby boomers and seniors.

“Consumers who heavily rely on retail subscriptions also tend to be the least tolerant of unsatisfactory experiences,” PYMNTS wrote in November. “For instance, subscribers who opt for scheduled delivery and auto-fill services are [more likely] to cancel their subscriptions if a merchant cancels an order due to an item incorrectly listed as in stock.”

Also Tuesday, Mastercard announced new cardholder offerings to benefit Canadian small businesses via partnerships with companies such as Slack, Asana, FlexiRoam and H&R Block.

“At Mastercard, we’re continuing our long-standing support for small business with new resources to help entrepreneurs tackle real-world challenges with confidence,” Nishant Raina, vice president of small- and medium-sized enterprises at Mastercard in Canada, said in a press release. “With this latest expansion, we’re giving small business cardholders even more opportunities to scale efficiently at every stage of their journey with relevant and differentiated solutions to improve their businesses in the long and short term.”