MasterCard Is Making It Easier To Pay By Mobile Phone

Mastercard Tap & Go

MasterCard said today it will let third-party developers tap into its payment systems, so they can be used for online or mobile applications. By opening up its services, the credit card company becomes more competitive in the next generation of platforms, which are the target of more than a dozen or so start-ups that have raised millions of dollars to make paying by cell phone more ubiquitous.

Through the program, developers will be able to bypass having to get a merchant agreement, setting up the system and making the consumer enter data each time. Instead, developers could use the new open platform to embed a payment feature in virtual games or in e-commerce apps on Twitter or Facebook, or to build an app that sends a text message to the card

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