MasterCard buys into NFC wallet provider C-Sam

C-Sam

MasterCard has signed a strategic partnership agreement with C-Sam and also acquired a minority shareholding in the NFC mobile wallet and transaction platform provider. The move follows a deal the two companies signed in May 2012 to offer a white label mobile wallet solution to mobile operators, retail banks and payment providers in the Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa regions.

C-Sam’s offering includes a back-end mobile wallet management platform, software development kits and on-device software to support NFC, bar code, QR code and cloud-based transactions as well as customer-specific offers, loyalty incentives, banking, bill-pay options and non-financial secure transactions. Customers include Isis and Singapore-based carrier Starhub, which launched a commercial NFC service in August 2012.

“C-Sam and MasterCard played a vital role in the development of our secure digital wallet service, enabling our customers to conveniently shop, pay for transport, redeem discount coupons and use digital credit or debit cards securely with a single tap of their NFC-enabled smartphone,” says Yeong Mun-Ling, Starhub’s vice president of business strategy.

“This partnership further strengthens our ongoing efforts to work with industry-leading companies to deploy our technologies and help drive innovation and adoption in the rapidly evolving digital payments space,” adds Ed McLaughlin, MasterCard’s chief emerging payments officer. “C-Sam’s proven track record and expertise in developing mobile platforms, combined with our worldwide network and suite of industry-leading payments solutions, will help enable us to deliver new, innovative solutions to a wide range of global customers.”

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