MasterCard Makes It Easier For More British Businesses To Accept Digital Payments

Thousands of online businesses in the UK will be able to benefit from using digital wallets to accept and process customer payments thanks to a new deal signed by MasterCard.

The payments provider has announced it will be partnering with Cardstream and PayVector to provide its MasterPass system to over 20,000 online businesses in the UK and Ireland.

MasterPass allows consumers to host traditional plastic cards into digital wallets, and gives them the ability to make a payment from wherever they are and with one simple experience. Partnering with payment service providers Cardstream and PayVector; both will now allow the thousands of retailers they serve to give their own customers a quick, simple and secure checkout process when shopping online.

Adoption

The company says that MasterPass is currently accepted at than 55,000 small and medium sized online businesses across the UK, as well as at large retailers such as Currys, PCWorld, Argos, Boots and quick service restaurants such as wagamama, with Carluccio’s, Zizzi’s and Ask Italian coming soon through the Qkr! app.

“The growth in adoption of digital wallets like MasterPass here in the UK shows how consumers are becoming increasingly confident when shopping online and looking for more convenient ways to pay,” said Scott Abrahams, head of acceptance and emerging payments at MasterCard UK & Ireland.

“As mobiles and tablets increasingly become the device of choice for consumers shopping online, it’s now critical for retailers to provide a quick, simple and secure checkout process which isn’t dependant on shoppers entering their card and address details. Together, Cardstream, PayVector and MasterCard are partnering to make this digital shift as seamless as possible.”

The partnership is MasterCard’s latest move towards getting digital payments accepted everywhere across the retail sector.

Back in September, the company said it wanted to allow ‘high-value’ contactless payments across all European terminals by 2017, the date by which new standards it is introducing across the continent should be completed.

This follows research by the firm which found that contactless transactions in Europe grew by almost 170 percent year on year during the second quarter of 2015, and consumers already using contactless tapped to pay 20 percent more.

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