Mobile Financial Services - A MasterCard and Telefonica International Joint Venture

MasterCard Worldwide (MC) and Telefónica (TEF) have formed a Joint Venture (JV) with headquarters in Miami, Florida for the development of Mobile Financial Services (MFS) across Latin America. Through this new venture, MC and TEF seek to utilize their assets to bridge the financial and telecommunications worlds by facilitating mobile payment solutions across the region and in this way, incorporating a broader group of the population into electronic payments. The JV will be operated as a separate entity with commercial freedom from its parent companies. Through the wide reach of mobile telephony, the new venture will create a new payment mechanism that will allow banked and unbanked mobile consumers to transact securely and conveniently. Through a prepaid account, registered customers will gain access to a wide range of MFS including: peer to peer transfers, merchant payments, remittances, airtime top-ups, etc. Key activities to be carried out by the new company (and third party providers) include issuance, merchant acquisition, construction of a cash in/cash out agent network, transaction processing, customer care, etc. The JV spans across 12 markets in Latin America. For more information please visit the following press release: http://www.mastercard.com/us/company/en/newsroom/pr_mastercard_telefonica.html