Toshiba, MasterCard partner on contactless chip module

MasterCard Worldwide and Toshiba Corp. have partnered to deliver the MasterCard PayPass-enabled chip module. PayPass is a contactless payment feature developed and deployed globally by MasterCard.

Designed using globally interoperable standards (ISO/IEC7816 and ISO/IEC14443), the chip module will be enabled with dual interface (EMV contact/PayPass contactless). The price gap will be kept to the minimum from the single EMV contact interface chip so that companies who currently adopt and deploy EMV contact chip can easily add and issue PayPass enabled cards with costs saved.

For MasterCard customer companies, adoption of the chip module is easy, as it is enabled with M/chip 2, which is the most accepted version of M/Chip (application for IC card of MasterCard) among MasterCard customer companies in Japan.

"Although contactless payment applications are common in Japan, they are specific to each vendor and therefore inconvenient for consumers since they are not compatible with systems used overseas," said Kazuhiro Kubota, senior manager, smart card systems sales and marketing department, Toshiba. "PayPass, however, has been widely implemented worldwide by MasterCard, and Toshiba believes that the inherent convenience of the PayPass-enabled chip will make it very popular among Japanese card issuers and cardholders."

MasterCard and Toshiba plan to launch the new chip module in the Japan by the end of 2008. While Toshiba undertakes production, MasterCard will expand the chip module equipped cards in the market and further expand PayPass that enables customer more convenient and secure payment.