MasterCard promotes 'market ready' MasterPass

MasterCard has launched a new advertising and marketing campaign for its online payment option MasterPass, signalling that the service is now "market ready."

MasterCard Australia country manager Andrew Cartwright said 1000 Australian merchants were offering MasterPass as an online payment option and there were more in the pipeline.

Merchants offering MasterPass include Chemist Warehouse, discount shopping site OzSale, travel site Zuji, Starbucks, Roses Only, Event Cinemas and Sydney Opera House.

"We now feel that we have significant merchant acceptance," Cartwright said.

Worldwide, MasterCard has 40,000 online merchants displaying the MasterPass logo. The theme of the campaign is "Fearlessly Shop the World".
 
Commonwealth Bank, Bankwest, National Australia Bank and Bendigo and Adelaide Bank are supporting MasterPass, with others "in the wind."

MasterPass allows consumers to load the details of up to 25 transaction cards and multiple delivery addresses into the system. When payments are made account and address details are forwarded to the merchant automatically.

It is an "open wallet", meaning that consumers can include their Visa and American Express cards in their MasterPass account.

The big advantage for online shoppers is that it simplifies and speeds up the transaction process.

The consumer is protected by a MasterCard's zero liability guarantee. Cartwright said MasterCard would incorporate tokenisation (the generation of a unique security code for each transaction) when it is available in the Australian market. He said he expected that to be next year.

Cartwright said a feature that would give MasterPass a competitive advantage over rival systems, such as Visa's V.me and PayPal, would be the incorporation of loyalty programs into the system.

"We have a couple of programs live today but it is still under development," he said.

"One transaction completes the payment and triggers the loyalty benefit, whether it is points or a discount.

Another feature that is still in the works is near field communication, to enable consumers to use their MasterPass wallet for contactless payments at the point of sale. Cartwright could not say when that facility would be available.

MasterPass first went live in Australia last year. Cartwright said the company had learned a few things over the past year.

"We made some changes to improve the process flow and enhance the user experience. And we have been working on getting more merchants to support it."