MasterCard and Intel have announced a new collaborations where they will work together to improve the overall online shopping experience through the payment process and better security.
This partnership will last several years and will bring together the expertise that MasterCard has in commerce and payment processing with the chip-based security strength of Intel. The concept of this collaboration is to make the checkout process much safer and easier for both online merchants and their customers who use the latest PCs such as thin laptops called Ultrabooks (for example, the Macbook Air).
These two large organizations will develop and improve the latest payment technologies such as the Identity Protection Technology from Intel, and the PayPass from MasterCard. The former of those technologies applies a two-pronged authentication process with hardware-based protection on the display as well as malware security protection. It will enable customers to use an Ultrabook, smartphone, card, or tag to pay for a purchase simply by tapping it on the reader device.
PayPass can be implemented in mobile phones and other devices, as well as traditional plastic cards so that instead of swiping a magnetic stripe (as is typical for a credit card), the device or card simply needs to be tapped against the reader that contains the right kind of technology. This is the method currently being used by the Google Wallet mobile payment system for Android devices.
MasterCard’s chief emerging payments officer, Ed McLaughlin, has explained that the partnership between his company and Intel will focus on making it simpler for customers to make a purchase with a simple tap or click.
