Mastercard's Transactions To Double By 2018 Thanks To Mobile Payments

The number of transactions that are handled by Mastercard's payment services is expected to almost double in the next six years, to 53 billion. The reason, according to analysts, is because of the company's extensive growth in the world of mobile payments. It's a segment that is seeing a lot of attention right now, and one that will enable Mastercard to get billions of new customers.

That's right – billions. There are five billion mobile phone users in the world, and right now very few of them use their phone to pay for things, much less at a brick-and-mortar store. Mastercard has been pushing forward with its mobile payment efforts, and even though they haven't been as glamorous as some of the recent new services, they've been doing a very good job.

Mastercard is focusing in particular in areas where traditional banking is less common than it in in deveoped parts of the world, like Africa, Latin America, Eastern Europe, and Asia. Only a small portion of the populations there have bank accounts but a growing amoung have mobile phones. Case in point, a venture called Wanda, which has provided mobile payment solutions to more than 87 million customers in Latin America alone. In total, the company says it can expect to enroll more than 2.5 billion under-served consumers with its mobile products.

[viaForbes]