MasterCard to expand digital wallet service beyond NFC

Computerworld - MasterCard on Monday revised its year-old mobile payment strategy by unveiling a digital, cloud-based service called MasterPass that moves well beyond near-field communication technology used in smartphones to support QR codes, traditional credit cards and other ways to make payments.

In an announcement at the start of Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the company called the change to MasterPass an "evolution" of its PayPass Wallet Services, first launched in the spring of 2012. MasterPass will allow consumers to make payments from digital wallets or traditional credit cards. Consumers can also rely on NFC or QR codes scanned with optical readers if such technologies are supported by the banks and stores that they use.

Because the new MasterPass system is cloud-based, consumers will be able to use their MasterCard or any other branded credit, debit or pre-paid card they want from any bank or merchant, officials said.

Purchases can be made at store checkout counters, or if customers don't want to wait in a checkout line, they can make purchases while standing in a store aisle via their smartphone or a salesperson's tablet. Consumers also can use the service from a mobile device or PC at home or elsewhere.

"MasterPass brings together all the ways we pay for things," said Ed McLaughlin, chief emerging payments officer for MasterCard.

The announcement is an indication of the slow global advance of mobile payments made with NFC technology, which requires consumers to use smartphones equipped with NFC chips and merchants to install NFC readers at checkout counters.

NFC technology has been used by consumers for transit and retail purchases for years in South Korea and Japan, but has been slow to catch on in other regions.

"We are still believers in NFC and think it will continue to progress, but there will always be merchants where NFC might not be the right solution and we don't want to be wed to one technology alone," said Ed Olebe, a senior vice president at MasterCard and head of MasterPass, in an interview.

"Where before we said to merchants to use NFC and PayPass using a secure element, you're now seeing us doing a lot more for those who want to use bar codes or QR codes or even sound waves to accept payments. Some technologies are more secure than others," Olebe said.

"Our insight is that the merchant is going to control their store and invest in the technology that might be right," Olebe said. "It's unlikely we'll be able to force merchants to pick a technology that's right for them. In some situations, plastic is still oftentimes right, so why force another mechanism on that?"