M-payment: MasterCard Launches PayPass Wallet Services
- MasterCard launches its mobile contactless payment service PayPass Wallet for iOS and Android. Available in the US, Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia as from the third quarter of 2012, it is also expected to be proposed on others market at a later date.
- PayPass Wallet Services is an open system which features three modules:
- PayPass Acceptance Network includes online (PayPass Online) and contactless NFC payments (PayPass Contactless), providing retailers with an all-in-one multi-channel acceptance solution. Shoppers who choose PayPass can transfer their payment information without re-entering the data for each transaction.
- PayPass Wallet provides banks and retailers with the possibility to white label their own mobile wallets.
- PayPass API allows partners to link their own wallets to the PayPass network and accept MasterCard payments with the protection of all the necessary authentication and fraud detection tools.
Source: Press release by MasterCard
- PayPass Wallet is free and open, allowing storage of data from other networks (Visa, American Express, Discover, Diners Club International, etc.).
- American Airlines and Barnes & Noble are among those who have signed up for the service. For this project, MasterCard works alongside different financial institutions (including Banesto, Bank of Montreal, Commonwealth Bank, Citibank and Metro Bank, for instance) as well as with several technical partners (including Apriva, Intel, mFoundry, Ogone Payment Services or Sage Pay).
- This announcement follows the launch of the V.me mobile wallet, presented by Visa in April. This m-wallet is also used to store different means of payment from other networks, and roll out is already underway with V.me available on Buy.com (acquired in June 2010 by Rakuten). In addition, Visa is also setting its sights on Europe (United Kingdom, Spain and France) with a roll out expected this autumn.
- These press releases confirm the break away from closed networks and a move towards an open model for payments based on open APIs. For example the MoneySend API by MasterCard was recently used by PaidPiper to create an innovative mobile money transfer system (see “PaidPiper Uses a MasterCard API for its Mobile Solution”).