Mastercard Launches Digital Wallet Strategic Partnerships

Mastercard announced today (Oct. 24) a host of new strategic partnerships to bring online payments capabilities to digital wallets users in the U.S.

The company will integrate its digital checkout option, Masterpass, with Android Pay, Samsung Pay and Microsoft Wallet starting early next year. The agreements will allow Mastercard cardholders to use the mobile wallets to shop online at the hundreds of thousands of merchants around the world where Masterpass is accepted.

“Mastercard is working to ensure that every one of our accounts is as digital as the people using them,” Garry Lyons, chief innovation officer at Mastercard, said in a statement.

“Enabling our cardholders to use digital wallets to shop online via Masterpass is the latest example of our work — alongside our banks, merchants and digital partners — to deliver rich, innovative, compelling and secure ways to pay and get paid across all channels and devices, redefining commerce globally,” Lyons continued.

The millions of consumers that use Microsoft Wallet, Android Pay or Samsung Pay will be able to use their same tokenized credentials and device authentication methods to complete online transactions at any merchant site that accepts Masterpass.

“With this partnership, Android Pay and Masterpass will deliver a seamless purchase experience at thousands of merchants that support Masterpass,” Pali Bhat, global head of payments products for Google, explained. “We’re excited to extend the reach of Android Pay by giving online shoppers even more ways to use Android Pay across the web.”

With the new integrations of both Masterpass and Visa Checkout, expected to arrive in the Android Pay app in early 2017, users will no longer have to remember various usernames and passwords for their online checkout experiences.

“The integration of Masterpass with multiple digital wallets demonstrates that Mastercard is committed to scaling the digital commerce opportunity in a way that promotes interoperability,” Jordan McKee, senior analyst at 451 Research, stated. “This is an important step in the continued evolution of Masterpass that serves to expand its value to merchants, issuers and cardholders alike.”