MasterCard Enhances Mobile Wallet with Stake in Wallet Expert C-SAM (Dec. 13, 2012)
Dec. 13, 2012
MasterCard Worldwide’s new stake in mobile wallet back-end technology expert C-SAM Inc. is the latest in a series of moves aimed to make it easy for consumers to pay with a minimum of steps through any channel. MasterCard did not disclose the terms of its deal with C-SAM, but calls it a “global strategic partnership,” indicating that C-SAM will become a core element in MasterCard’s PayPass Wallet Services. MasterCard’s PayPass Wallet Services is comparable to Visa’s V.me wallet service, observers say, and the two companies are jockeying to gain an advantage through elegant integration of mobile wallet features and services through various partnerships and acquisitions. MasterCard earlier this year acquired Truaxis Inc., a loyalty engine specialist.
Through this partnership, Chicago-based C-SAM will provide back-end infrastructure, software development kits and on-device software to support MasterCard’s various wallet-based NFC payments, as well as barcode, QR code and cloud-based transactions, MasterCard said. The C-SAM platform also supports customer-specific offers, loyalty incentives, banking, bill pay options and nonfinancial secure transactions. Once fully implemented, MasterCard PayPass Wallet Services will enable consumers to “shop and pay on any device (PC, tablet, smartphone, smart TV) or at the point of sale with a common set of payment credentials accessed with a simple click, touch or tap,” a MasterCard spokesperson tells Paybefore.
Adding C-SAM’s capabilities “can provide technology to take the wallet out into the retail environment, which is an obvious next step,” Rick Oglesby, a senior analyst with Aite Group, tells Paybefore.
