Contactless Smart Cards, RFID, Payment, Transit and Security

MasterCard offering mini PayPass cards in Spain

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

MasterCard and Spanish banking groups La Caja Insular de Ahorros de Canarias and EURO 6000 are to trial a miniature version of its contactless PayPass card. The mini card is small enough to attach to a keyring.

The PayPass technology will enable customers to pay for purchases of less than 40 Euros by tapping their plastic card against a specially equipped reader at select merchants.


MasterCard will conduct initial trials of its mini card in the city of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria with 400 customers and 15 merchants, mostly restaurants and pharmacies. A second phase will see the cards rolled out to over 5000 customers.

In the past, MasterCard has added its PayPass technology to wrist watches in conjunction with Turkey’s Garanti Bank and Taiwan’s Chinatrust Bank. Meanwhile keyfobs featuring the contactless system are available to Citibank cardholders in the US, the Web site added.

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MasterCard and mFoundry have announced a partnership to enable more banks and credit unions around the world to offer customers contactless mobile payments.

The collaboration will combine MasterCard’s PayPass technology with mFoundry’s mobile financial services platform, which is used by more than 560 U.S. banks and credit unions. The resulting service will allow customers to make payments by simply tapping their NFC-enabled phone on any PayPass terminal at a merchant check-out.

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Ed McLaughlin, MasterCard’s head of Emerging Payments, has some good news for those waiting on NFC-enabled phones for contactless payments.

In an interview with Fast Company, McLaughlin said that he didn’t know of a handset maker who wasn’t working on integrating support for PayPass contactless payments.

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Diners Club Spain has chosen Gemalto to help it migrate to EMV in 2012. In this effort, Gemalto is providing consulting and personalization services to Diners Club Spain.

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The UK’s YESpay International and YES-wallet.com have teamed up to build an NFC-enabled cloud-based mobile payments platform.

By integrating the YES-wallet Pouch digital wallet with YESpay EMBOSS payment service, the companies will provide a platform that encompasses e-Money, pre-paid and gift-card payments based on Visa PayWave and MasterCard PayPass contactless standards.

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Turkcell, Turkey’s largest mobile operator, has announced the launch of its Cep-T Cüzdan NFC mobile wallet application on BlackBerry Bold 9900 smart phones.

Turkcell subscribers with NFC-enabled Bold 9900s can now use the mobile wallet service to make contactless payments at any MasterCard PayPass-enabled point of sale across Turkey, as well as abroad.

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As some may recall back in June 2010, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) of New York launched tap-and-go contactless payments for commuters to enter select subway stations and participating bus lines using MasterCard PayPass-enabled terminals. Well, the results are in.

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