Financial services company Mastercard has announced a new policy for merchants and cardholders. The policy will stipulate that Mastercard requires merchants to request authorization from cardholders before charging for recurring subscriptions.
In the announcement on its website, Mastercard said it realises that free trials have become quite necessary for both merchants and customers.
“Sometimes a free trial can unwittingly turn into a recurring subscription that is difficult to cancel. These situations can be frustrating and costly for both consumers and their banks.”
This means that all MasterCard holders can now cancel free trials of products easily and have the option to cancel recurrent subscriptions.
With this policy, it intends to make the free trial experience as hassle free for cardholders as possible.
Merchants will be required to provide the cardholder with transaction amount, payment date, merchant name along with explicit instructions on how to cancel a trial.
Subsequent payments will require transaction receipts sent to cardholders with instructions to cancel the subscription if they choose.
There was no specification or indication if the policy was relevant to digital products alone, but the company says the new policy will help improve transparency.
UPDATE: “MasterCard’s new ‘hassle-free free trial cancellation policy’ is for physical products alone”
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