MasterCard’s PayPass was delivered a blow when Apple announced its latest iPhone would not be supporting NFC. Billy Bambrough spoke to MasterCard’s senior business leader of mobile payments, Stephen Wood about where the technology will go from here
"As an NFC project manager you want as many ecosystem participants as possible," Wood told EPI, before somewhat casually dismissing the choice of the most influential electronics maker to shun NFC once again. "Apple for whatever reasons have chosen not to take part. But, if you look at who is supporting it, Android is rolling it out worldwide, as are Blackberry and Windows."
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There is a difference though between actively supporting a feature and merely including it because you’ve got space to fill. When Apple include something in their handsets they do so with gusto. Siri was the star of thousands of hours of TV commercials, and the fingerprint scanner is the driving force behind the latest iPhone’s advertising campaigns.
Other phone makers seems to include features just because they have nothing else to go there and have combined to pretty much nothing to promote the use of a technology they are "backing".
But, regardless, according to MasterCard NFC is growing strong with $74bn predicted by 2015 and 300m, or one in five, smartphone are expected to be NFC enabled by 2014.
"There is enough momentum from the other players in the market for NFC. It’s not every technology that is driven by the handset makers. Joint ventures, telecoms and issuers are also helping to drive the technology in many markets."
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By GlobalDataWood admits that it is still early in the NFC lifecycle but maintains he sees it as part of the payments mix for the foreseeable future.
"I don’t think it will be the exclusive solution. We have MasterPass for example which we are working on expanding to in-store purchases. We’re keeping our options open and I think these options will be able to co-exist.
As payments get quicker and simpler they also seem to become less secure, at least in the eyes of the consumer.
Wood is quick to reassure that the speed and ease of use you get from using both MasterPass and PayPass doesn’t impact on the security of the payment being made.
"There are many things you can buy online with cloud based credentials. Currently most of these are limited to one retailer so we bring a scale where you can store them once and use them in various places."
Despite almost all forms of electronic payments having a far greater uptake in developing economies, Wood is confident that the European markets are performing as well and providing as much success and innovation as his global counterparts.
"It’s all about local interpretations of the global theme. Through our local partners we can bring a product to market that is suitable for the area’s dynamic."
MasterCard is focused on building the infrastructure to support NFC and mobile payments and is working especially hard on this in the eastern European markets. Teaming up with the local telecoms Wood says that in Poland MasterCard has put in place a national TSM infrastructure to bring the banks on board.
"As we build relationships with the banks and the telecoms we can work to bring the parties together. This combined with the level of contactless acceptance and high level of contactless issuance on cards, makes this a very suitable market."
On the deluge of e-wallets available on the market, Wood says: "Competition is always great and I’d love to see start-ups continue to snap at the heels of the market leaders to keep everyone moving forward.
"That said, it seems unlikely that there will be a huge number of different branded payment buttons on every site. We will see a few come out on top and MasterCard is well placed there because of our relationship with issuers.
"MasterCard is looking likely to be one of these buttons but a lot of people are going to be making a grab for this space."
