American-based credit card giant MasterCard, on February 25, 2013, launched a new digital payment system. The new system by the company will allow people to use a variety of devices, including smartphones, to spend their money.
The system is known as MasterPass and stores a customer’s banking and personal information in a secure cloud online. The information will be available only for the moment a payment is being made, while the user is in a store and browsing the internet.
Newer retail stores and banks can now issue MasterPass-connected digital wallets to their customers. The latest system was launched on the opening day of the four-day Mobile World Congress, which is the world’s biggest mobile fair in Barcelona, Spain. The digital wallet will accept credit and debit cards, along with MasterCard.
Customers can also make payments by other means, such as waving their smartphones equipped with Near Field Communications (NFC) technology near a special reader. Ed McLaughlin, the head of emerging payments at MasterCard said, “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”. Laughlin added that every device is now becoming a shopping device.
