Saudi Arabia's payment network mada has partnered with Mastercard, a leader in the payments industry, to launch a new mobile payment solution.

The 'mada Pay' mobile payment wallet is the first tokenised multi-issuer mobile payment solution in the country with contactless functionality, and one of the first of its kind globally. Mada Pay offers the convenience of fast and safe payments at near field communication (NFC)-enabled point of sale terminals across thousands of merchants in the kingdom.

Building on the successful enablement of the mada debit scheme for online commerce earlier this year, the launch of the solution marks another key milestone in Mastercard’s long-term partnership with mada, and represents another example of Mastercard’s continued efforts to collaborate with the network in bringing more innovative technologies to the kingdom.

The solution leverages Mastercard Digital Enablement Service (MDES), which uses the industry’s most advanced payment technologies such as EMV, tokenisation, and cryptography, to ensure complete peace of mind for consumers. The solution is also powered by the mada tokenisation platform for local transactions, protecting cardholders’ information at all times, whether they are shopping online, in-app or in-store locally or internationally.

“Helping governments fight cash inefficiencies is among our top global priorities at Mastercard. Advanced payment technologies like the mada Pay mobile payment solution are set to contribute to the kingdom’s Vision 2030 digital roadmap, by increasing the adoption of electronic payments and facilitating cash displacement. Powered by the multi-layered safety and security features of our cutting-edge tokenisation technologies, mada Pay will boost consumer confidence in mobile payments and help reduce the kingdom’s reliance on cash. Mastercard remains committed to leveraging its technological expertise and capabilities to support the Kingdom’s journey to becoming a cashless society,” said J.K. Khalil, Cluster Head, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.

“In today’s dynamic and digital environment and with the increasingly high rate of smartphone adoption in the kingdom, the need for a mobile application to ease the payment process further was just the right thing to be pursued by mada and our global partners and member banks. Enriching our payments infrastructure with mobile payment capability able to host dual schemes to function locally and internationally is indeed an achievement on a global level that we are very proud to have achieved through our partnership with Mastercard. Mada Pay is certainly one of the gears that we intend to continue depending on to make people’s life easier and smoother during the payment step at retail checkout points,” said Ziad Al-Yousef, general manager of the General Department of Payments Systems at the Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority (Sama). - TradeArabia News Service