MasterCard PayPass sees growing acceptance in Asia-Pacific

MANILA, Philippines - MasterCard’s innovative contactless payment technology called MasterCard PayPass has seen growing acceptance in Asia-Pacific, driven by the benefits it provides to consumers and merchants alike.

In the Philippines, a large number of consumers are already enjoying the convenient, fast, and secure features of PayPass via the BDO International ATM MasterCard PayPass card and Smart Money PayPass card at hundreds of merchant stores all over the country. These include Burger King, Wendy’s, Kenny Rogers, Bench, Esprit, Fossil, Haagen Dazs, and The Body Shop, to name a few.

Overall, as of Q4 2008, there are over 50 million MasterCard PayPass cards and devices in use at over 141,000 merchants worldwide. This is more than double the number of contactless payment cards and devices in circulation around the world last year. MasterCard PayPass trials and rollouts have been conducted in 25 markets, including Australia, Canada, China, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Korea, Lebanon, Malaysia, Mexico, Mongolia, the Philippines, Poland, Russia, Spain, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and the United States. 

MasterCard PayPass is designed to ease and speed up transactions for small-ticket items; it uses a radio-frequency antenna that allows the card to securely communicate with a specially equipped point-of-sale reader wirelessly. Since there is no need to swipe or insert the card anymore or fish for small bills and coins, it effectively speeds up transactions. Higher security and customer control are also ensured, as the card stays with the cardholder the entire time. With MasterCard PayPass, cardholders can also enjoy better record-keeping than when they use cash for purchasing items.

Faster payments enabled by MasterCard PayPass make it an ideal payment tool in establishments where speed is essential, such as fast-food restaurants, coffee shops, bookstores, record bars, bowling alleys and movie theaters.

“MasterCard PayPass was developed with the objective of providing consumers with more convenience, speed and security in quick-payment establishments. At the same time, it presents an innovative technology to the merchants that helps them enhance customer service and potentially realize cost savings,” said David Chen, vice president, Product Sales and Delivery, MasterCard Worldwide.

As it grows rapidly in acceptance and usage, PayPass has been evolving in form, keeping up with the trendy, fast-paced lifestyles of the modern consumer. From its original shape of being embedded in a plastic card like your regular ATM or credit card, PayPass has metamorphosed into key fobs, wristwatches, wristbands and now mobile phones.

“Contactless payment is a growing trend in Asia-Pacific and one thing we are really working on is the use of mobile phones for payment purposes because today’s mobile phones are very powerful. We have already conducted PayPass trials with NFC-enabled mobile phones in Taiwan, Japan and Korea and we will see more across the region in the near future,” Chen added.

A MasterCard survey on payment habits and perceptions of consumers confirms that consumers in Asia-Pacific are fast catching on to contactless cards. According to the survey, globally, the convenience factor was perceived as the biggest benefit by consumers to using contactless payments (47 percent), followed by the additional security features contactless cards provide (39 percent), the extra seconds shaved off from the time it takes to make a purchase (38 percent), and the benefit of not having to carry cash when you have a contactless card (34 percent).

With its growing acceptance and expanding usage options, it’s fairly realistic to expect contactless payment technology to further evolve and become even more popular in the coming years.