MasterCard and US vendor C-Sam are to jointly offer a NFC-based mobile wallet service aimed at mobile operators, retail banks and payment providers. The partners will target potential customers in the Asia Pacific, Middle East and African markets.

The service will integrate MasterCard’s newly announced PayPass Wallet service, its pre-paid platform and offers with C-Sam’s mobile wallet management technology.

The pitch of the two companies is that it makes more sense for the likes of mobile operators in the three regions to adopt a white label service than build their own mobile wallets from scratch.

The MasterCard/C-Sam solution means a mobile operator would not have to worry about managing multiple handsets, OSes, secure elements and connections to third-party systems.

The two partners’ service would enable customers to offer a range of contactless payment services incorporating offers, coupons and other value-added services.

Another US vendor Boku announced a few months ago that it was offering a NFC-based mobile wallet service on a white label basis to mobile operators. The service also featured MasterCard (its debit card appeared in the virtual wallet).

The Boku service involves putting NFC stickers on conventional handsets to enable mobile payments. It is not clear from the Mastercard/C-Sam announcement whether they are adopting a similar approach.

Last summer C-Sam announced it was supplying its mobile wallet management technology to Isis, the joint venture that will shortly launch its NFC-based service in the US.