New European platform will allow consumers to make purchases using their smartphones.
MasterCard, the credit card giant, has announced that it is partnering with Deutsche Telekom, in order to launch a new platform for mobile payments that will allow consumers to complete shopping transactions using their smartphones and tablets.
The companies hope that the partnership will make this process simpler for the 93 million customers that the telecom company has throughout Europe.
Visa, American Express, and MasterCard are already marketing their own mobile payments services.
Each of these digital wallets are designed to make it simpler for consumers to complete transactions both while shopping online as well as at actual brick and mortar store locations. Poland will be seeing the first consumer roll out of this most recent partnership, when it becomes accessible to them later this year.
These same mobile payments will also be introduced in Germany, starting with smartphone cards and tags, in a trial that will continue right through into the start of 2013 with a digital wallet service. This platform will also be available to other banks and partners that issue MasterCard cards, and it will be followed by launches in other marketplaces throughout Europe.
The products from MasterCard will be issued through ClickandBuy, a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom.
According to the chief product and innovation officer at Deutsche Telekom, Thomas Kiessling, “With MasterCard we have a well-known and experienced partner generating growth in this important market segment. We want to build a comprehensive ecosystem around mobile payment, helping Telekom to realize its strategy of being the first choice for customers regarding connected life and work.”
This type of partnership is in no way unique to those two giants. Earlier this year, in February, Visa and Vodafone Group PLC announced their own deal for a mobile payments service that would be developed by Visa under the Vodafone brand. This telecom company’s customer base is 398 million people across 30 different countries. Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and Turkey will be experiencing that launch later this year. More roll-outs are expected to follow in the other countries served by Vodafone.