Mastercard and Weve pair up to drive contactless mobile payments in UK
Mastercard has paired up with EE, O2 and Vodafone’s mobile marketing and wallet joint venture Weve to drive the development of mobile contactless payments in the UK.
The partnership, officially unveiled today (6 February) will lead to the rollout of mobile contactless payments technology in the UK, with the aim of providing consumers with fast, safe and convenient ways to pay via their mobile phones at point of purchase.
Mastercard will provide technology and integration services to banks and financial institutions that want to be part of Weve’s payment platform, meaning they too can provide customers with “Safe, simple and smart” mobile payments.
Previously, it has been a highly complex process for banks to tap into mobile payments, often having to engage in complex development and integration projects, which sometimes only address one area of the market, according to Weve.
The aim of partnering with Mastercard is to help reduce the fragmentation and complexity in the mobile payments market, to help accelerate banks’ abilities to run mass-market contactless mobile payments within a short space of time, and with the same protections from fraudulent activities as they would receive with conventional Mastercard payments.
Marion King, president UK & Ireland at MasterCard said the partnership will have an important role to play in the future of mobile payments.
“We look forward to implementing this contactless mobile payments technology in the UK and providing the technology and service to banks to ensure their customers can benefit from safe and simple mobile payments. The partnership with Weve will play an important part in providing ways to pay as we continue to work towards a world beyond cash,” she said.
Weve CEO David Sear said: “MasterCard's vision of a world beyond cash maps neatly onto our own vision of a world powered by mobile.
“Its existing relationships with the banks, in addition to its own experience of the mobile payments world, make it an ideal partner for Weve.
“It allows the banks to focus on what they're good at – finding smarter and more elegant ways for their customers to pay for goods and services.
“Contactless payments have already been embraced by UK consumers and retailers, with the UK the most advanced market for adoption of contactless cards with around 300,000 retail outlets now accepting payments in this way. With MasterCard, we want mobile to reach the tapping point.”
The move follows Weve’s rollout of its first display mobile ad targeting service, having signed up six beta test partners, of which Tesco is the first, last week.
The platform, which has the 22 million-strong opt-in customer base of the three major mobile network operators which have a combined market share of 80 per cent, is also planning to reveal the details on the next wave of its loyalty scheme in the coming weeks.