Smart unit to provide mobile platform for MasterCard

MANILA, Philippines - Smart Communications, through subsidiary Smart Hub, has been tapped to provide the mobile financial services platform to support the new MasterCard Mobile Payments Gateway.

MasterCard’s new payments processing solution will enable financial institutions and cellular phone networks around the world to deliver end-to-end mobile payment services.

“Successful growth of mobile payments around the world requires participation, communication and collaboration among all members of the mobile payments value chain. We are excited to build upon a successful history with MasterCard to advance mobile payments innovation in the industry by delivering compelling solutions that combine the global MasterCard brand and world-class payment network with our extensive digital telecommunications capabilities and world-first wireless data services,” Smart president and CEO Napoleon Nazareno, who also heads Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT), said.

MasterCard is working with Smart Hub to leverage its mobile payments technology to develop the MasterCard Mobile Payments Gateway. Requirements for development of a mobile payments infrastructure vary from market to market. By integrating Smart Hub’s capabilities, MasterCard has created an open mobile payment processing platform through the MasterCard Payments Gateway to facilitate the launch of MasterCard Mobile payment solutions in developing markets.

It has piloted the new payments gateway in Brazil with Itaú Unibanco, Redecard and mobile network operator Vivo, and will later introduce it to other markets around the world.

The service will give consumers the ability to use their phone as a mobile wallet and link their existing credit, debit or prepaid MasterCard or Maestro card accounts to their mobile phone to fund mobile-initiated payments.

The Mobile Payments Gateway is a turnkey mobile payment processing platform that allows issuers, acquirers, merchants and mobile network operators to quickly and cost-effectively provide customized mobile solutions in developing payments markets by tapping into the MasterCard Worldwide Network, the payments industry’s only fully globally integrated network.

As a result, banked and unbanked mobile consumers gain access to a wide range of MasterCard mobile payments solutions that provide greater payment convenience and security over cash — using their mobile phone to make purchases, send and receive money between family and friends, transfer funds between accounts, pay bills, deposit funds such as payroll or social benefits, top up mobile airtime, load value to prepaid accounts, get cash from ATMs, and keep track of their balances and activities with mobile alerts. 

MasterCard is helping to transform financial services with mobile innovation to fulfill a global market need. Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP), an independent policy and research center housed at the World Bank, and the GSMA Association report that there are more than four billion people worldwide who have a mobile phone, but far fewer mobile phone users have a bank account — with the number to grow from one to 1.7 billion by 2012.

The Mobile Payments Gateway enables them to benefit from secure and convenient mobile payment services that were previously unavailable to them.