MasterCard-Less!

These days all you need is a phone to handle the biggest issues. From running a company to sorting out drama with your babymama without having to meet  her. The world is well aware of the power of the cellphone, but more specifically the banking industry.

You may have noticed the little logos on your ATM card showing MasterCard or VISA right? They are the world’s two biggest credit card competitors. They are accepted in almost any country when buying goods/services and you won’t find any place that will accept one and not the other.

Now they have come up with a cardless system for Android devices. Brilliant right? No more queuing up for weeks to replace that stolen/lost/broken ATM card *wipes brow*.

Before, information had to be stored in a secret place on your phone but now you can store your private account details in a remote server. It’s making shopping much easier because all you have to do is connect your phone to any shop’s card reader which will read the necessary account details and your transaction will be done in a few minutes. The app will also be configured on both the shop’s and MasterCard and Visa servers so it will make the transaction connection effortless.

MasterCard and Visa cardless services will be available on devices with near field communication (NFC), present on most Android devices. Apple’s iPhone has phone casings that enable this feature so they might also be able to access the service too.

There were a few scares with this one though, like, what happens if your device gets stolen or people try to hack into it? The assurance is that your card number is encrypted and can be disabled from another device by only you, the account owner. The developers have strongly stated that this is a much safer method than plastic cards. All the technicalities will be explained by MasterCard in June but for now we can look forward to a hassle free future. FNB has already started the cardless movement here in Zambia with the FNB eWallet service.

Let’s see how far this goes.