MasterCard and Intel Teaming up on NFC
- Intel and MasterCard have entered a multi-year strategic partnership to ease and secure online and contactless transactions. Their collaboration will rely on Intel’s expertise in Identity Protection Technology (IPT). It combines two-factor authentication and hardware-based display protection.
- Both e-merchants and online purchasers using Intel’s Ultrabook devices and future generations of Intel-based PCs should benefit from this partnership. A reader including Intel’s IPT will allow the Internet user to make online contactless payments by bringing his NFC-enabled mobile phone or PayPass MasterCard card nearby his computer.
- Intel’s skills in silicon and chip-based security will make it possible to authenticate purchasers and e-merchants on a large scale, since it contributes to simplify the security process (no password asked) without impacting its robustness. This agreement has the potential to make a lasting impact on the shaping of next generation payments kinematics.
- On the same topic, US mobile operators’ ISIS JV has provided details on its roll-out. A pilot programme will be launched in 2012 in Salt Lake City and Austin, Texas. Generalisation is planned for 2013. In the US alone, online sales reached $176 billion in 2010.