The National Bank of Georgia reported that Governor Natia Turnava met in Washington with Mastercard’s regional leadership during the IMF and World Bank Annual Meetings to discuss future areas of cooperation and ongoing joint projects, with an emphasis on payment services, financial inclusion and reforms supporting digital transformation. The discussions highlighted work to strengthen the operational security of card transactions and to enhance strong customer authentication (SCA) for card payments, with system upgrades and new authentication mechanisms underway. The central bank also pointed to banks’ reliance on card schemes for cross-border payments and scheme-provided technologies such as card data tokenization, authentication mechanisms and monitoring tools, and framed Mastercard coordination as increasingly important as new local and international fintech firms enter the market. The release also noted that Turnava’s visit includes scheduled meetings with U.S. investment firms including J.P. Morgan, Citibank and Bank of America.