Partnership between MasterCard and Everything Everywhere

• MasterCard has partnered with the British mobile carrier Everything Everywhere (JV founded by Orange and T-Mobile) to roll out m-payment dedicated offers. A five-year exclusive partnership has been signed, allowing for the development of NFC services, to be followed by P2P transfers and loyalty features.

• MasterCard now has access to Everything Everywhere’s 27 million UK customers. The partners shall for instance focus on a prepaid cobranded mobile app likely to be of interest for users reluctant to set links between their bank accounts and m-wallet, and, meanwhile, favour the overall adoption of mobile payment.

Source: Press release

• This agreement resembles Orange and Barclaycard’s partnership on Quick Tap (see April 2012 Insight). Moreover, mobile acceptance is part of their long term objectives, and MasterCard could manage to streamline its cross-channel sales processes.

• Just like its rivals, MasterCard has partnered with various mobile operators, including Deutsche Telekom (see July 2012 Insight), and strengthened its links with Turkcell.

• On the British market, this agreement could also cast a shadow on Barclays’s Pingit (see "Barclays Proposes Pingit Internationally" in this release) or on O2’s initiative: its Visa-affiliated O2 Wallet (displaying relatively likewise features) was launched last April (see May 2012 Insight).

• In June 2011, Everything Everywhere, O2 and Vodafone also got involved in the “OSCar” Project, a joint venture deferred while waiting for the results of the European Commission’s investigation on the matter. These delays do not however prevent these players from carrying on their research and taking place on the mobile acceptance market.