MasterCard's open API for third-party developers? Pricelessly

In a press release distributed this morning, MasterCard , the international payment system, announced that developers of desktop and mobile applications will get full access to the API from the payment giant completely free later this year.

The company hopes that by opening its technology to developers, it will have at its disposal new and innovative e-commerce applications using the MasterCard network, which will potentially allow it to compete with Visa , PayPal and Square (which at the moment are much more successful in these endeavors - comment translation. ).

Josh Peirez, head of innovation at MasterCard, said the company "is pleased to help software developers around the world create a new generation of payment applications that will seriously change the rules of the game for the entire electronic payment industry." The newly launched portal, MasterCard Labs, will help developers with this, where they can access APIs, SDKs, guides and forums to discuss and experiment with the company's technologies.

The announcement came at a time when the mobile payment market became a very “hot” place due to the rivalry between startups and payment system giants. The San Francisco-based startup Square has a large user base using their mobile application and hardware key, which allow credit card transactions using various mobile devices; PayPal, an online payment mogul, recently teamed up with Bump Technologies to provide mobile payment services and payments.

Visa also announced its foray into the mobile payment market. Earlier this month, MasterCard’s main competitor with DeviceFidelityannounced the development of a special application for the iPhone, which will allow users to get all the benefits of wireless and contactless payment methods similar to Visa payWave directly from their mobile device.

But mobile payments are just one of the platforms on which MasterCard has hopes for developers to create applications using their APIs. The company claims to have identified 20 other areas in which its API can be used, including payroll systems, social networks, e-wallets and online games.

With the popularity of sites like Blippy, which allows users to automatically exchange purchases made with a credit card with their friends, MasterCard can provide an extremely valuable API for developers at the right time for these types of platforms and services.

Many doubted these new services because of the obvious security risks that mobile payment systems are fraught with, but MasterCard takes precautions to make sure that their platform is not abused. According to today's morning press release, "all developers will be approved and registered by MasterCard to ensure that payment and data services from MasterCard are still being used properly and efficiently."

_{The translation, if possible, was made as close as possible to the original text, but in some places it was necessary to slightly change the structure of the sentences. If you have any comments, write a letter by habrahmail.}