MasterCard Worldwide chose Smart Communications, Inc. (SMART), via its subsidiary, Smart Hub, Inc., to provide the mobile financial services platform for its new MasterCard Mobile Payments Gateway and fulfill the global market need for electronic wallets.

MasterCard’s new payments processing solution will enable consumers all over the world to link their existing credit, debit or prepaid MasterCard accounts to their mobile phone, making it a true mobile wallet that can to fund mobile-initiated payments.

Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP), an independent policy and research center housed at the World Bank, and the GSMA Association report that there are more than 4 billion people worldwide who have a mobile phone, but far fewer mobile phone users have a bank account with the number to grow from 1 to 1.7 billion by 2012.

The Mobile Payments Gateway enables them to benefit from secure and convenient mobile payment services previously unavailable to them. It also makes mobile payments a way of life for mobile phone users around the world.

MasterCard piloted the new payments gateway in Brazil with Itau Unibanco, Redecard and mobile network operator, Vivo and will later introduce it to other markets around the world.

The Mobile Payments Gateway is a turnkey mobile payment processing platform that allows issuers, acquirers, merchants and mobile network operators to tap into the MasterCard Worldwide Network, the payments industry’s only fully globally integrated network.