PURCHASE, N.Y.—Mastercard and Verizon have announced a partnership focused on 5G contactless payments for consumers as well as small- and medium-sized businesses.
The organizations reported that they hope to have some innovations in place as a result of the partnership by 2023.
The collaboration aims to enable businesses to use emerging payment technologies to turn smartphones into cash registers, to turn wearables like watches as payment devices, and to facilitate touchless retail similar to Amazon Go stores, CNBC said.
“A large retailer can easily do this. A small business--how are they going to do it? That’s exactly what this will bring; 5G allows us to deliver the full experience,” Mastercard CEO Michael Miebach told CNBC. “For example, I choose an item in a shop, but actually they don’t have the color I like. So, I’m going to have it sent home, and it is going to be paid once it arrives, all of that is coming together and we with 5G will be enabling this.”
‘Frictionless Ways’
Added Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg, “5G will enable the small- and-medium business to handle transactions more quickly and focus on what they are really delivering to customers,” “You can use 5G to create more frictionless ways of transacting with your customers and focus on your business. That’s of course what we see with touchless stores and coming out from COVID, I think we see much more touchless because it’s part of our society today.”