MasterCardannounced an agreement with Obopay, Inc. to offer a fully-integrated
on-demand person-to-person mobile payment service in the United States. The
service, offered via MasterCard MoneySend, will give new and existing
MasterCard issuing customers the ability to provide an innovative mobile
payments service to their MasterCard cardholders on all credit, debit and
prepaid MasterCard-branded products.
The announcement of this service comes at a time when consumers are
increasingly seeking to use their mobile phones to streamline and simplify
their day-to-day activities, including banking and payment transactions.
TowerGroup estimates that in the United States, adoption of consumer mobile
banking has quintupled in the past 12 months from 1.1 million active users
in 2007 to 5.7 million active users today. As mobile consumers become
increasingly comfortable with converging technologies on their mobile
devices, the opportunity to develop mobile payments systems will continue
to grow. The new Mobile MasterCard MoneySend Person-to-Person service will
give participants the freedom and flexibility to directly, easily and
securely send and receive funds through any registered cardholder’s mobile
phone. The service will make mobile money transfer seamless for millions of
consumers. Participants will use mobile numbers to send and receive funds,
keeping their payment account numbers private.
“Our strong partnership with Obopay takes the development of the mobile
person-to-person payments framework to the next level,” said Art Kranzley,
Chief Emerging Technology Officer, MasterCard Worldwide. “The power and
breadth of the MasterCard network combined with the account relationships
of MasterCard issuers and Obopay’s mobile payment technology enable us to
offer valuable new services for consumers throughout the U.S., allowing
consumers to easily transfer funds to their friends and families. We will
launch this new service with our financial institution customers and Obopay
in the near future.”
Kranzley also noted, "The development of this service underscores our
commitment to driving commerce and industry innovation. We will continue to
develop solutions that combine payments and communications onto ‘anywhere,’
‘anytime’ consumer devices that provide a positive business model for all
parties in the mobile payments value chain.”
"Obopay is proud to establish this partnership with MasterCard, and we
look forward to developing a service that will build on MasterCard’s
history of delivering mobile services to their cardholders” said Obopay
President, U.S.-based Operations, Gregory Holmes. “With more consumers
clamoring for services that fit their mobile lifestyles, we’re confident
that MasterCard cardholders will welcome the option of quickly and easily
sending money to other cardholders via mobile phone.”
Driving Innovation in the Payments Industry
The U.S. is an important market for MasterCard innovation. The highly
developed marketplace and sophisticated consumer preferences demand the
most advanced payments solutions. MasterCard’s focus on products and
services that are directly related to payments, such as MasterCard(R)
PayPass(TM) will propel continued innovation for the industry in the mobile
space delivering value for all parties in the value chain including
financial institutions, operators, merchants and consumers.
With over 28 million MasterCard PayPass cards and devices in use at
more than 109,000 merchant locations worldwide, and multiple in-market
mobile PayPass trials taking place in the U.S. and globally, MasterCard is
committed to delivering fast, convenient and secure transaction experiences
for consumers at the point of interaction.