Mobile payments actively driven by MasterCard

While some call for wide NFC adoption mobile payments are really growing in popularity among consumers who wish to use their cell phones not just as a means of communication but as a payment tool. Edgar, Dunn and Company report that over 600 million mobile “wallets” are expected to be in use by 2011 and that number is expected to rise to 1.4 billion by 2015. In this regard MasterCard was an active advocate for partnerships in the mobile space to facilitate the rapid, healthy development of the mobile payments business.

In 2007 MasterCard launched its Mobile Partner Program which proved successful with over 30 companies that joined the project. In fact the MasterCard Mobile Partner Program is a global online resource center aimed at sharing the experience and knowledge while managing document distribution, tracking product implementations and evaluating partnership opportunities within the mobile industry. A number of participants expressed their enthusiasm with the project.

Tripp Rackley, CEO, Firethorn Holdings, LLC, a Qualcomm company, notes that participation in the MasterCard Mobile Partner Program enables Firethorn to easily and conveniently collaborate with MasterCard and its key partners to drive the evolution of mobile payments forward and propel the growth and delivery of smart technologies to their customers. Frédéric Chevreton Corporate Vice-President - Payment Product Line, Oberthur Technologies, acknowledged that the program allows Oberthur to integrate into the industry to advance the development and implementation of secure mobile payment technologies.

Heikki Huomo, vice president, general manager, NFC, NXP Semiconductors, and Jérôme Sion, Director of Mobile Contactless at Gemalto, also expressed their satisfaction with the project, noting that the MasterCard Mobile Partner Program helps the collaboration on contactless payment deployments around the world to create exciting new mobile payment services for consumers and value for all stakeholders.