Mastercard launches new program to turn wearables into payment devices

Mastercard has introduced a new program to give the consumers freedom to make purchases using any device or thing that is more convenient to them, including automobile key fobs, jewelry, and even clothing.

The program will bring the technology behind Apple Pay, MasterCard Digital Enablement Services (MDES), to more wearable devices with new developments and will provide the highest level of security. The MDES program was launched a year ago and powered Apple Pay on iPhone 6 and the Apple Watch.

Mastercard's Chief Emerging Payments Officer said, as reported on Business Wire, that as more and more things become connected, consumers will have endless possibilities when it comes to how they pay, and will need all of their devices to work seamlessly together.

He added that this program eliminates the boundaries of how people pay by delivering a secure digital payment experience to virtually anything.

To launch the new program, Mastercard is partnering with several major partners over multiple verticals to fit every lifestyle need.

The company's initial partners for this program are the prominent consumer brand makers including fashion designer Adam Selman, automotive maker General Motors, wearable technology innovator Nymi, smart jewelry company Ringly and Bluetooth locator TrackR.

The Mastercard's new program is enabling the partner's products with tap-to-pay functionality. For example the exclusive fashions from Adam Selman or wristbands from Nymi can be used to make purchases by tapping them to a nearby terminal.

According to Mobilepaymentstoday, the prototypes of the partners' products will be on display at the Money 2020 conference in Las Vegas this week.

To launch the program, Mastercard has been working with chip manufacturers NXP and Qualcomm to help partner companies adding the payment capabilities into their products.

The company is also supported with Capital One as its first leading issuer to take part in the program.

Mastercard said, as reported on NFC World, the Capital One Wallet will authenticate the users to provide strong security for provisioning and managing tokens. It also includes enhanced real-time transaction notifications identifying the device used in each transaction.

The company also added that the Capital One is one of many issuers with tens of millions of Mastercard credit and debit accounts already participating in MDES.

To provide the program's security, Mastercard will use domain restrictions system on tokenized data in each device. The system will know when the transaction provisioned by a device is being used by someone else, and will identify the transaction as a fraud and will decline it.

The products with this new Mastercard program will begin to be launched in 2016 in the U.S.