MasterCard PayPass programs let cardholders make payments by simply tapping the card on a specially equipped merchant terminal without having to swipe the card through a terminal. This eliminates the need to hand over the card to a sales clerk and is suitable for quick payment environments such as fast food outlets, service stations, supermarkets and movie theatres.

Keycorp's contactless MULTOS technology is already being used in a multifunction card for banking and transit in Taiwan, which is the world's first MasterCard OneSmart PayPass Chip Combi Card, known as the TaiwanMoney Card.

As a result of the certification by MasterCard, Keycorp is now able to work with a number of card manufacturing partners to offer a contactless chip payment product for general use by any issuer worlwide who wants to offer a OneSmart PayPass product.

"Contactless payment cards are becoming increasingly popular and there is a growing trend to combine a number of applications on a single card," said Richard Cusson, Keycorp's General Manager, SmartCard Technologies.

"Keycorp is well placed to address those opportunities because of the security, openness and flexibility of our MULTOS technology with the added ability to offer contactless and contact card EMV applications to some of the most innovative issuers worlwide."

"MasterCard is pleased to announce that Keycorp's Type A Reduced Embossing M/Chip 4 PayPass card has now achieved full certification," said Toni Merschen, Head of Chip Center of Excellence, Global e-Business and Emerging Technologies, MasterCard Worldwide. "This milestone allows us to provide our customer financial institutions globally with a fully type approved product to support their contactless payment ambitions."

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