Buying overseas just got easier

Chinese consumers will soon be able to make purchases around the world from various connected devices safely and conveniently, as MasterCard announced on Friday the launch of its cloud-based payment services for cross-border payments.

"Today, about 40 percent of world's population is connected to the Internet. With smartphones, tablets and other connected devices, such as wearable, we expect by 2020 about 50 billion devices will be connected to Internet," said Raj Dhamodharan, group head of emerging payments at MasterCard for Asia Pacific.

To secure payments across all kinds of devices, the cloud-based payment services will use a unique number, or a token, delivered by MasterCard Digital Enablement Service to every connected device. The device will store the token instead of the real credit card number, thus reducing the risk of bank account information being stolen, Dhamodharan said.

Under this service, even if consumers lose their devices, they do not need to worry about fraud because a fingerprint scan or a PIN is required to make a transaction on their devices. Meanwhile, they are not going to lose access to their bank account and credit card. All they need is to generate a new token number for their new device, which will still map to the same card, he said.

About 100 million Chinese consumers travel overseas every year. The service will help Chinese consumers make contactless payments at more than 2.8 million merchants around the world, he said.

Dennis Chang, MasterCard's general manager in China, said: "With the rapid development of the Internet and smart mobile devices, the global payment industry is arriving at the transition point. Our company believes that both security and convenience should be strengthened while we are making payment innovations."

The introduction of MasterCard cloud-based payments to Chinese financial institutions will create a seamless and secure payment experience for their customers on any device, Chang said.