MasterCard Embarks on Mobile Payment Partnership with U.K. Telco

MasterCard announced today it is partnering with U.K. mobile operator Everything Everywhere on a mobile payments partnership.

The five-year deal involves developing mobile and digital payment solutions for Everything Everywhere’s 27 million U.K. customers. According to MasterCard the partnership "will support the accelerated adoption of secure mobile payments by combining technology and financial assets to create new services that will make paying for goods and services easier for people and small businesses."

One of the first products to launch through the partnership will be a co-branded prepaid solution for mobile devices that allows customers to make payments using NFC technology at more than 100,000 retailers in the U.K.

Over the course of the partnership, MasterCard and Everything Everywhere said they will expand its scope into other areas, including person-to-person money transfers, loyalty rewards and digital payment services.

This announcement is the latest in a series of mobile payments partnerships the card scheme has undertaken with telecomm companies. In March, they announced a NFC-enabled payments program in Qatar conjunction with Qatar National Bank, Qatar Telecom and Oberthur Technologies.

In July, MasterCard and Deutsche Telekom announced an agreement to enable European consumers to use their mobile phones to make payments.

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Bryan Yurcan is associate editor for Bank Systems and Technology. He has worked in various editorial capacities for newspapers and magazines for the past 8 years. After beginning his career as a municipal and courts reporter for daily newspapers in upstate New York, Bryan has ... View Full Bio