On an earnings call with analysts today, MasterCard Inc. President and CEO Ajay Banga addressed mobile payments. According to Forbes, when asked about consumer adoption of the technology, Banga said MasterCard is placing bets on three possible scenarios.
"(W)hether mobile payments develop ... as a contact-based system, or an SMS-based money movement system, or as a true mobile commerce-enabled system, with the rapid deployment of smartphones in the world, I think some version of all three will begin to develop," Banga said. "What we're trying to do is to place bets in all three, and to be partners with institutions — banks and phone companies and merchants — in all three spaces."
According to the article, Banga said that cost of point-of-sale terminals to accept mobile transactions using contactless payments may be hindering merchants adopting the method.
"There's a lot of work to be done in this ecosystem yet," he said.
Banga also said he wasn't sure of just how quickly mobile payments will reach wide adoption.
"I don't know that it will happen in six months or one year compared to two years or three years. I don't know the answer to that yet," he said.
