The future according to MasterCard

If I were to mention MasterCard to you, the first and probably only thing that would enter your head is credit cards, so when I got an invite to visit MasterCard’s Dublin office I did not not know what to expect. MasterCard’s Dublin office is their global office for MasterCard’s technology operations also known as MasterCard Labs and it’s here where they are developing their new fintech and IOT projects.

One of the main areas in fintech that MasterCard are heavily involved in is contactless payments which they see is the future but it is not yet big in America or Germany where 80% of transactions are still cash ones. When contactless payments were introduced to replace the Oyster Card used on the London underground, 40,000 transactions were done in the first morning they were launched and 1.2 million transactions are now done every day with most of these been on the London underground.There is a lot of fear around contactless payments, but I was reassured when I was told that there is not much money to be gained from contactless cards. As there is a €30 limit per transaction, criminals would prefer easy access to more money, and want to be able to open a credit card in your name so that they can get between €1000 to €10,000 and not €30.  If you have been scammed, you can relax as electronic payments are traceable and banks all over Europe will refund you.

MasterCard have noticed that whenever new technology is introduced, the younger generation start to use it first and then the older generation will slowly follow suit. This is especially true when it comes to contactless payments and IOT devices which are still at an early stage. IOT devices have to have rigid security standards in place to reassure users, adoptability and to make sure that devices can’t be hijacked.