The achievement demonstrates Gemalto's readiness for supporting commercial launches of mobile contactless payment programs, according to MasterCard's security requirements. This certification immediately applies to Gemalto's Taiwan-based data center and enables the company to support financial institutions in the deployment of their Near Field Communications (NFC) services on mobile phones. NFC technology is the wireless connectivity standard endorsed by the industry for data transfer over the mobile phone.

Gemalto's services allow for the secure deployment and management of contactless mobile payment. The certification establishes that MasterCard recognizes and endorses the company's ability to manage personal user information for banking transactions. For financial institutions, this is assurance that they can rollout their payment services on mobile phones with the highest level of security and data confidentiality.

"MasterCard works alongside vendors to offer secure NFC payment solutions to its issuing banks," commented, Andrew Smith, vice president, Mobile Centre of Excellence, Asia/Pacific, Middle East & Africa, MasterCard Worldwide. "We are pleased to collaborate with technological enablers like Gemalto that will allow financial institutions to rollout NFC MasterCard® PayPassTM mobile services safely, adding ease to Taiwanese consumers' fast-paced lifestyles and spurring the growth of contactless payments in the market."

"The role of the Trusted Services Manager is to provide independent, secure channels for service providers to conveniently engage their customer base into the mobile world," added Tan Teck Lee, President of Gemalto Asia. "It is a role built on security, interoperability and trust, which facilitates business between mobile network operators and service providers. We are very proud to receive this certification from MasterCard, which acknowledges Gemalto's ability to fulfill this role."