MasterCard announces its pick of approved mobile payment solutions, includes Square, iZettle, Elavon

Payment giant MasterCard is flexing its influence to help bring greater certification to the mobile payments space after it announced a list of mobile payment solutions that it says “meet industry standards and MasterCard best practices”. The selection includes Square, iZettle, Elavon and 16 others.

Spurred by the phenomenal adoption of smartphones worldwide, mobile payments have been a hot bed for startups and young companies looking to make transactions and the process of shopping more frictionless for consumers and retailers. With its move to provide a set of trusted solutions, MasterCard is aiming to give a greater degree of clarity and guidance for merchants that are considering the move to accept payments.

Those companies featured on MasterCard’s initial list include some verified giants — Square is valued at $3.25 billion, having raised more than $340 million, and iZettle’s total funding is almost at $50 million — but there’s no place for Rocket Internet-backed Payleven, for one. MasterCard encourages absentees from its list to register and self-certify their solution.

Here’s the full list of 19 companies:

Corduro, Ezetap, Elavon, Handpoint, Itos, iVeri, iZettle, JSC Smartfin (2Can), Miura Systems, NetSecure, Payments (Kudos), Payworks, ROAM, SCCP (Swiff), Soft Space, Square and Thyron Systems.

While the list is strictly recommendational, clearly there is much kudos and benefit to being deemed industry standard by a vastly influential payment figure like MasterCard.

Mung Ki Woo, Group Executive of Mobile at MasterCard Worldwide, believes that the program will benefit merchants, payment facilitators and shoppers.

There are millions of mobile POS solutions in-market today. That’s millions of merchants who have spoken loud and clear about the benefits of moving from cash to electronic payments. Mobile devices are rapidly transforming the point of sale experience, both for consumers and merchants, and the growth of this program demonstrates our long-term vision to provide technology and tools that support the transition of every mobile phone into a shopping device.

The exclusion of Germany-headquartered Payleven is interesting, particularly since MasterCard is an investor in its European rival iZettle, which is on the list. Alongside SumUp — which is another high-profile absentee — the three startups are the early leaders in Europe’s mobile payment race; last year, US giant Square voiced commitment to expanding outside of North America but it is yet to do so.

Square has the support of Starbucks — which invested $25 million in its Series D round and is also a retail partner. Square payments began rolling out at 7,000 Starbucks shops in the US in November.

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