At Mobile World Congress today MasterCard introduced “MasterPass.” This is an ‘evolution’ from the PayPass Wallet Services trial that was launched last year and aims to take on other competing ‘digital wallets’ such as Google Wallet and PayPal, or even to get a head start from Toronto-based EnStream.
Ed McLaughlin, chief emerging payments officer, MasterCard. “MasterPass brings together all of the ways we pay for things, from traditional plastic cards to digital wallets, and gives consumers the ability to make a payment from wherever they are and with one simple experience.” Basically MasterCard is taking a different route and enabling retailers to immediately get in on the action. MasterPass works via NFC, QR codes, tags and goes beyond simply tapping your smartphone to a terminal and gives the user the option to make purchases from anywhere – in-store or online. Let’s say you’re in your local Sunglass Hut and want that pair of glasses, but the lineup is too long. All you’d need to do is quickly go online with one click purchase and ship the glasses to your address.
MasterPass will store all your contact details stores securely stored in the cloud and it’ll act as your “connected wallet.” Finally, MasterCard notes that there’ll be “value added services” that will “enrich the shopping experience before, during and after checkout. These will include more information like account balances and real-time alerts, loyalty programs, as well as Priceless offers and experiences.”
MasterPass will be available to us Canadians at the “end of March” and it currently looks like the only financial institution to hop on board is the Bank of Montreal.
Source: MasterCard
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