Mastercard has introduced Wallet Pay, a global portfolio of digital payment solutions designed to improve interoperability among digital wallets across contactless payments, QR codes and online transactions.
The company announced the initiative on Thursday, saying the platform aims to help wallet providers expand services and improve payment connectivity worldwide.
Digital wallets have evolved into multi-service financial platforms, with more than 4.3 billion users globally. Mastercard expects global digital wallet usage to exceed 6 billion users by 2030.
Mastercard Wallet Pay will allow wallet providers to offer smoother payment experiences, from everyday spending to cross-border transfers, by connecting different wallet ecosystems through Mastercard’s global payments network.
The platform is being introduced through partnerships with digital payment providers, including Alipay+ partner wallets such as AlipayHK, Clip, GCash, KakaoPay, TNG eWallet and TrueMoney, alongside Axian, CRED, DaviPlata, Mercado Pago, MTN and TenPay Global.
Mastercard said the service will expand access to digital financial tools by enabling acceptance at hundreds of millions of merchant locations and digital access points worldwide.
“Wallets are gateways to the digital economy and launchpads for broader financial services,” said Mastercard Chief Product Officer Jorn Lambert. He said the platform would help payment providers improve interoperability and user experience through trust, scale and convenience.
The Wallet Pay portfolio includes cross-border wallet connectivity, digital card issuance, unified digital and e-commerce payment experiences and faster transfers between cards, wallets and accounts across more than 200 countries and territories and 150 currencies.
Mastercard said the platform will allow merchants to accept payments from cards and wallets both online and in physical stores, enabling more than 3.7 billion Mastercard credentials to connect with digital wallets.
The company said the initiative also supports financial inclusion by providing low-cost digital financial tools for underbanked and unbanked consumers in emerging markets.
“Consumers and merchants don’t think about the complexity behind payments. They simply want to pay and get paid using the payment experiences they already know and trust,” said Mastercard Executive Vice President of Core Payments, Asia Pacific Joyce Bo.
She said the next phase of digital wallets would depend on interoperability at scale, with Wallet Pay helping providers expand services from cross-border payments to card issuing without having to build all connectivity themselves.
Mastercard said Wallet Pay builds on its broader financial inclusion efforts, including the Global Financial Health Coalition, which brings together digital wallet providers to help close the gap between access to financial services and financial health.
The company said the platform enables wallet providers to introduce new services using cloud-based payment technology and Mastercard’s global acceptance network without significant changes to existing infrastructure.
