Vodafone and Sumitomo Corporation partner with Mastercard

When commenting on the announcement, representatives from Pairpoint underlined that, through the partnership between Vodafone, Sumitomo, and Mastercard, the companies intend to provide customers with a secure and simplified way to authorise their machines to conduct online transactions while also generating additional growth opportunities for businesses and scaling the integration of the Internet of Things (IoT) and blockchains.

Moreover, Pairpoint-enabled devices are set to be assigned standards-based digital identities stored within their SIMs, which the company can then leverage to allow interactions and trades with other permissioned devices on its platform. The solution follows existing IoT technology that assists unattended connected devices in transmitting and receiving data, supporting, for example, a shipping container in autonomously reporting its weight and free capacity. In addition, the new service is set to be globally scalable, available to all telecommunications players, and support payment credentials functioning on all major card networks. As per the information detailed in the press release, the solution is set to become available in the UK by the end of 2024, with a progressive roll-out across Europe to follow.

The partnership between the three companies utilises the geographical scale of Vodafone’s global IoT platform, as well as Sumitomo’s industrial capabilities in 66 countries and regions. At the same time, the collaboration uses Mastercard Gateway’s payment acceptance solution which connects over 200 financial institutions across over 80 markets globally.