Mastercard brings First-Party Trust chargeback protection to EEMEA now and the rest of Europe in July 2027

Mastercard announced on 22 October 2026 that it is extending its First-Party Trust programme to Europe. The programme targets so-called friendly fraud, where a cardholder disputes a genuine purchase, either deliberately or because they do not recognise the charge on their statement. It launched in 2024 in the US, Canada, Latin America, the Caribbean and Asia Pacific. The programme becomes available in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa in October 2026, and across the rest of Europe in July 2027. It combines three elements: trust signals from Mastercard's fraud models at authorisation, evidence that merchants supply about the purchase, delivery and authentication of an order, and new rules that define what counts as compelling evidence. Disputes that meet the evidence-sharing requirements give the merchant chargeback protection. Merchants of any size can share this data either with the transaction itself or later, during the dispute process. The aim is to help issuers tell genuine third-party fraud apart from first-party misuse before a chargeback is raised, so fewer legitimate sales are reversed. Mastercard cited Merchant Risk Council figures forecasting 324 million chargebacks globally in 2028, up from 261 million forecast for 2025. For online sellers, friendly fraud is one of the largest sources of lost revenue and dispute fees, and the programme puts more weight on the quality of the order and delivery data they keep.