Mastercard, WeWork team up for office payments

The program — which marks Mastercard’s first time piloting an office-specific offering — is being developed in partnership with Cisco and AVA retail. Two of the solutions, which are currently being piloted at WeWorks Enterprise Innovation Lab in San Francisco, are explained below. 

Pay-as-you-go capability is WeWorks Hot Desk service, which is designed for people who work part-time or remotely, currently costs USD 220. But a new tool, powered by Ciscos Kinetic IoT data platform, could help shift it to a pay-as-you-go model, using Mastercards payment infrastructure that charges members for the time they spend at a Hot Desk, rather than at a fixed rate.

Contactless purchasing. Customers can make Mastercard-powered contactless purchases at WeWorks snack and beverage self-service kiosks — called Honesty Markets — that are equipped with AVA SmoothShop technology, which wirelessly tracks purchases, to reduce friction.

This program can potentially drive adoption of contactless payment technology. WeWork has a growing network — the company counts more than 150,000 members and more than 160 locations throughout 50 cities worldwide. Now, Mastercard can expose that population to contactless payments for daily purchases, which could help normalize the technology. Contactless payments have been slow to catch on, comprising only 2% of US transactions this year, according to a Juniper study. But introducing in-office contactless payment technology could help get consumers accustomed to the payment method. If this pilot program is successful, and Mastercard deploys it at more locations, it can be a catalyst to contactless payment adoption.