MasterCard launches new digital payment system

BARCELONA (AFP) – Credit card giant MasterCard announced Monday the launch of a new digital payment system that lets people use a wide variety of devices including smartphones to spend their money. The system, known as MasterPass, stores customers’ banking and personal  information in a “secure cloud” online where it is available for the moment of payment whether in a store on when browsing the Internet, the group said.

Banks and stores will be able to issue MasterPass-connected “digital wallets” to their customers, the group said on the opening day of the four-day Mobile World Congress, the world’s biggest mobile fair, in Barcelona, Spain.

The system will also accept credit and debit card information, including cards other than MasterCard’s.

Shoppers would be able to use the system on the web without having to key in their bank information and delivery address for each purchase.

But they also could make payments with the new system in other ways, including by waving a smartphone equipped with Near Field Communications, orNFC, technology near a special reader.