LONDON -- According to a report in New Media Age, MasterCard is the latest company to enter the burgeoning online person-to-person (P2P) payments market this year, with trials set to take place around Europe.
The company will make the move through its Maestro brand, which is currently only used as a debit and cash card. Using Maestro, users will be able to send money to each other via mobile devices and over the Internet, through email or banks' own Web sites. The service should also be available on Web-enabled ATMs, according to the report.
According to Ann Camarillo, CEO of Maestro International, banks will be able to offer the service by next month. The firm reportedly is in discussions with banks about running P2P trials in the UK and Holland.
Herve Kergoat, head of pre-pay services at Mastercard's European partner EuroPay, confirmed that pilots should be in place by year's end, with banks rolling it out to customers from the beginning of 2003.
Once the system has been launched, Maestro will look at a further range of applications, Kergoat said, including tie-ups with auction Web sites.
There are now some 400 million Maestro cards around the world, 51 percent of them in Europe. Maestro is used as a local brand in 40 countries, including Italy, Austria and most of Eastern Europe.
The new scheme should prove less costly than existing international money transfer schemes. This is important for European banks because the European Commission has ordered banks to ensure the costs of all domestic and international transfers of euros are the same by July of 2003.
