News from CTIA Wireless 2012: MasterCard Wallets, Verizon Tablets

Last updated: 20 March 2014

This week, we’re at CTIA Wireless 2012, showcasing some of our NFC solutions (booth #3432 – stop on by!) and seeing what’s new from our colleagues.  Pre-conference on Monday, we stopped by the MasterCard event to get their latest news.  Sure enough, it was a big announcement: MasterCard introduced PayPass Wallet Services.

It’s likely you already know about MasterCard’s contactless PayPass product – it is included on many of its physical cards to let you pay for goods at the point-of-sale (POS) with only a wave of your hand.  Now, MasterCard is bringing PayPass into the world of digital wallets, letting cardholders and partners securely pay with phones or online.  At the event, we watched as MasterCard demonstrated the PayPass Wallet, paying online with a single click, or paying at the POS with a smartphone.  Visa, too, has announced its own digital wallet, V.me.

So what does all of this digital wallet news mean?  To put it simply: soon, we will all be able to pay online or in-person easily with any device.

Elsewhere at CTIA we’ve seen that Verizon is offering enterprises a new tablet solution.  According to Wireless Week, “Verizon is calling the program ‘Blank Slate’ because businesses can order durable, enterprise tablets with no preloaded applications. Those companies can then tailor their tablets using the Verizon Private Applications Store for Business to authorize employees to download enterprise apps.”

And of course, it wouldn’t be CTIA without new devices on display.  So far we’ve seen new devices for the 4G LTE network including the Samsung Focus 2 and the HTC Droid Incredible 4G LTE.  We’re looking forward to seeing many more as we walk the show floor.

All of this news already and the show has just begun!  We will be back with more news as CTIA Wireless 2012 progresses.  If you are at the show, stop by our booth #3432 and see some solutions for NFC payments, mobile marketing, and non-payment applications.

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