MasterCard has partnered with Oracle.

MasterCard has partnered with Oracle to grow digital reach.

A new global partnership between MasterCard and software firm Oracle will give Oracle’s clients better access to digital payment solutions, according to an announcement made at Mobile World Congress.

The partnership will focus on in-store experiences, operational efficiency, and cross-channel consistency. Most notably, it will allow for pre-integration, meaning that Oracle users will be able to simply integrate MasterCard digital offerings directly into their existing platforms, MasterCard digital payment products EVP James Anderson told BI Intelligence.

The platform could quickly gain traction in the industry.

• Digital payment offerings are becoming more popular because of the benefits they can provide. Increasing digitization of consumer habits across the board naturally carries over to finance and purchasing behaviors. For example, BI Intelligence expects US mobile order-ahead sales to reach $38 billion by 2020, up from $4 billion in 2015. That benefits businesses, because mobile orders are often larger than traditional orders, which increase sales, giving firms a reason to want to integrate these offerings.  
• But they’re often tough to access, which could give MasterCard a leg up. Historically, enabling some of these offerings could be challenging for merchants, because they had to connect two different platforms — the digital payment offering and the restaurant’s existing software platform. The pre-integration that MasterCard is offering could make access to these services much simpler, which might make the partnership popular among Oracle’s customers and quickly drive up usage. 

And that ultimately benefits MasterCard by allowing it to quickly scale its digital offerings in new sectors. MasterCard has been working to expand Masterpass through things like robust bank partnerships, in order to extend the service to as many users as possible. Now, its likely the firm is focused on merchant partnerships, as part of a move to grow use cases, onboard more clients, and expand usage. Oracle could be a key player in that, thanks to its size, and because, according to Anderson, food and beverage is a major target industry for the wallet. If successful, it’s likely we could see more partnerships like this down the line.

Retailers like Starbucks and Dunkin' Donuts are winning over consumers with their mobile wallets — apps developed by stores to make it easier for their customers to pay, and to deliver valuable perks. 

And these retailer wallets are leading the overall mobile wallets industry, thanks to their ability to rapidly push out innovative features like rewards programs, coupons, mobile order-ahead, and custom marketing.

This may be surprising considering that retailer mobile wallets can be used only at a specific retailer’s locations; in contrast, popular universal mobile wallets like Apple Pay and Samsung Pay can be used at multiple retailers, as long as users are using the necessary smartphones.

Ayoub Aouad, research analyst for BI Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, has compiled a detailed report on retailer mobile wallets that assesses what makes them so successful and which retailers can most effectively leverage the technology to push sales, traffic, and average ticket size. The report also outlines what makes these mobile wallets attractive, and discusses some of the advancements being made in the payments industry that will affect mobile wallets' growth rate.

• BI Intelligence 
• Feb. 28, 2017, 11:11 AM 2,010