Near Field Communications Handsets and Tags, NFC Pilots and Projects

MasterCard PayPass sees 49% growth in Q1

Monday, June 28, 2010

MasterCard’s PayPass has recorded 49% growth in the first quarter of 2010 compared to the same period last year, according to bernama.com.

MasterCard says a major contributing factor to this growth is the high level of consumer satisfaction with the contactless payment service, with 94% of PayPass customers reporting they are “satisfied” to “very satisfied.”


MasterCard also says it is “accelerating” its NFC mobile payment efforts by working with industry leaders, including Gemalto, to introduce new mobile “Tap & Go” style solutions. One such solution, called the Upteq N-Flex, is a wafer-thin device that can be inserted into virtually any mobile phone to turn it into a payment device. It is currently being piloted in Singapore with DBS Bank, EZ-Link and Starhub.

There are currently 75 million PayPass cards and devices in circulation worldwide accepted at 230,000 merchant locations.

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MasterCard and mFoundry have announced a partnership to enable more banks and credit unions around the world to offer customers contactless mobile payments.

The collaboration will combine MasterCard’s PayPass technology with mFoundry’s mobile financial services platform, which is used by more than 560 U.S. banks and credit unions. The resulting service will allow customers to make payments by simply tapping their NFC-enabled phone on any PayPass terminal at a merchant check-out.

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Intesa Sanpaolo, Italy’s largest financial institution, has begun a commercial trial of SIM-based NFC mobile payments, reports NFC World.

The service, dubbed “Move and Pay,” is being tested among 600 Intesa Sanpaolo employees and customers in Milan and Turin, as well as by two academic institutions: The Polytechnic Institute of Milan and Turin ISMB.

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As some may recall back in June 2010, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) of New York launched tap-and-go contactless payments for commuters to enter select subway stations and participating bus lines using MasterCard PayPass-enabled terminals. Well, the results are in.

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DeviceFidelity and SpringCard have unveiled moneto, a multiplatform mobile wallet solution for iPhone and Android users.

Much like DeviceFidelity’s In2Pay solution, moneto relies on a protective iPhone case equipped with an NFC-enabled microSD card. The moneto mobile wallet is powered by MasterCard PayPass technology and linked to a reloadable MasterCard prepaid card to enable contactless mobile purchases wherever PayPass is accepted.

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Turkcell, Turkey’s largest mobile operator, has announced the launch of its Cep-T Cüzdan NFC mobile wallet application on BlackBerry Bold 9900 smart phones.

Turkcell subscribers with NFC-enabled Bold 9900s can now use the mobile wallet service to make contactless payments at any MasterCard PayPass-enabled point of sale across Turkey, as well as abroad.

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Ed McLaughlin, MasterCard’s head of Emerging Payments, has some good news for those waiting on NFC-enabled phones for contactless payments.

In an interview with Fast Company, McLaughlin said that he didn’t know of a handset maker who wasn’t working on integrating support for PayPass contactless payments.

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