In this press release MasterCard takes credit for being the first network to enable provate label credit cards in digital wallets, although exact dates for availability were not provided:
“PURCHASE, N.Y.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–MasterCard today became the first payment network to provide tokenization services to private label (store-branded) credit card issuers, enabling merchants to take advantage of the latest digital payment innovations. BJ’s Wholesale Club, Kohl’s and JCPenney will be among the first retailers to bring mobile payments to their private label cardholders later this year. The company also announced partnerships with some of the largest private label credit card issuers in the U.S., including Synchrony Financial and Citi Retail Services, to enable consumers to use their eligible credit cards within participating mobile payment and digital wallet services.”
Perhaps as interesting is the statement made in this press release indicating that MasterCard has enabled prepaid cards to reside in digital wallets:
“Since the announcement of MDES in 2013, millions of MasterCard accounts have been tokenized for use in popular digital wallet services. MDES currently provides tokenization services for credit, debit, co-brand, prepaid and small business cards, with private label tokenization beginning in the third quarter of this year. Additional information can be found here.”
Overview by Tim Sloane, VP, Payments Innovation at Mercator Advisory Group
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