GLOBAL financial groups are competing to control the lucrative future of "mobile money", which will enable people to use a smartphone to go shopping instead of cash and credit cards.
MasterCard, Visa and online payments service PayPal vied for a slice of the industry as the world's biggest mobile fair, Mobile World Congress, opened in Barcelona overnight.
The mobile money industry is expected to grow from $A13.5 billion in 2013 to $A271.9 billion by 2018, according to a study released this month by global research group Markets and Markets, which estimates there will be about 5.3 billion mobile phones worldwide this year.
MasterCard announced a new digital payment system that lets people use a wide variety of devices, including smartphones.
MasterPass stores customers' banking and personal information in a "secure cloud" online, where it is available for the moment of payment, whether in a store or on the Internet, MasterCard said.
Banks and stores could issue customers MasterPass-connected "digital wallets", which would accept credit and debit card information, including cards other than MasterCard's.
Shoppers could use MasterPass on the web without having to key in their bank information and delivery address for each purchase.
But they also could make payments with the new system in other ways, including by waving a smartphone equipped with Near Field Communications (NFC) technology near a special reader.
MasterPass will be launched in Australia and Canada by the end of March before expanding to other markets.
On the same day, Visa unveiled a global alliance with Samsung to let people make payments with NFC-equipped Samsung smartphones.
Samsung will equip the next generation of its mobile devices with Visa payment technology, including by pre-loading Visa's contactless payment system - Visa payWave - in its mobiles.
Samsung will let banks send payment account information over the airwaves to a secure microchip embedded in its devices.
Visa said the deal could "significantly accelerate" the availability of mobile payments globally, noting a forecast by ABI Research that 1.95 billion NFC-enabled devices will ship in 2017.
Five days before the World Mobile Congress, eBay subsidiary PayPal said it was expanding its move into MasterCard and Visa's territory.
PayPal president David Marcus showcased a new device that lets cash-based businesses accept PIN-based "smart" debit and credit cards.
Merchants will download a Paypal Here application for their Android or iPhone smartphone, then pair the handset with a new device that can accept secure payments and issue receipts. For each transaction, whether by credit card, debit card or PayPal account, PayPal receives a "small fee".
Similar PayPal technology is being used in the United States for payment cards that are swiped, but cannot handle cards with embedded microchips and PINs.
