MasterCard inks mobile banking partnership with mFoundry

MasterCard announced an international partnership with mobile banking solutions provider mFoundry, promising financial institutions new services enabling customers to make purchases via smartphones. MasterCard has also made a strategic investment in mFoundry--details were not disclosed.

The new collaboration will combine MasterCard's Near Field Communications-based PayPass tap-and-go solution with mFoundry's financial services platform in an effort to expand mobile payment solutions to more banks, credit unions and consumers. mFoundry already boasts partnerships with more than 560 financial institutions. The two firms also will develop a Mobile PayPass application optimized for wireless carriers.

The mFoundry partnership follows just weeks after MasterCard entered a multi-year strategic collaboration with Intel to improve the digital shopping experience and consumer financial security. MasterCard will combine its expertise in payment processing with Intel's chip-based security efforts to forge a safer, more efficient checkout process--moving forward, consumers with MasterCard PayPass-enabled smartphones can pay for purchases simply by tapping their device against reader units supporting Intel's Identity Protection Technology.

Beyond its recent announcements, MasterCard serves as a key partner in the new Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) Wallet platform--the NFC-based service enables selected Nexus S Android smartphone users to make purchases by tapping their device at 300,000-plus PayPass-enabled merchant terminals. MasterCard is also one of several financial services providers to pledge support for Isis, the forthcoming NFC-based m-commerce network spearheaded by Verizon Wireless (NYSE:VZ), AT&T (NYSE:T) and T-Mobile USA.

For more:
- read this release

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