MasterCard’s Qkr app rolled out for Ireland

MasterCard is planning an Irish roll-out of its Qkr payments app, which allows customers to order and pay for goods through MasterCard's digital MasterPass Wallet.

The app is being used by Wagamama, Zizzi and Ask Italian in the UK, and there are plans to implement it in the Dundrum branch of Zizzi.

Qkr integrates with POS systems in restaurants, allowing customers to pay their bill at the table when they are ready, add to their order or split the cheque.

It can be used with any payment card, despite the MasterCard link, and can be used in the US, Canada, UK, Australia, Colombia, Chile, Ireland, Italy and Turkey.

The app is one of the payment tools MasterCard has developed to make digital payments easier. Selfies, iris scans and your heartbeat are some of the ways we could be making digital payments in the future, with MasterCard working on new ways to authenticate users that will make payments easier and more secure.

MasterCard Labs, the company’s research and development headquarters, is based in Ireland and plays a key role.

At the Mobile World Congress in February, MasterCard announced a new app that would authenticate users through a selfie, requiring users to blink to begin the authentication process. The system was piloted in the Netherlands and the US.

"Lots is being done here," said Garry Lyons, the company's chief innovation officer."I intentionally decided I didn't want centres of excellence. I didn't want Ireland to be, say, the mobile payments centre of excellence or data analytics centre of excellence.

Multiple labs

“I like the idea of collaboration and diversity,” Mr Lyons added. “We try out projects that span multiple labs, so there is very little that doesn’t touch Ireland. We’ve created thousands of projects here.”

Among those with their roots in Ireland are host card emulation, which is used in systems such as Android Pay. The Identity Check app, also known as Selfie Pay, uses software from the Dermot Desmond- owned Daon and began life in the Dublin lab.

“What we’re doing here is you’re getting the chance to influence the way your friends and family pay in the future,” Mr Lyons said.

The research facility is working with partners such as Ringly and Nymi to build authentication into wearable technology in an attempt to make it easier for consumers to pay. However, there is an expected level of failure built into the more experimental projects.

“We move quickly, we experiment, and we know not everything we innovate will succeed,” he acknowledged.