MasterCard says that from October next year all of its cards issued in Australia and New Zealand will include PayPass contactless technology.
There are already 5.3 million PayPass cards in Australia that can be used at over 35,000 retail locations, including McDonald's, Bunnings and 7Eleven.
As well as making all cards contactless from October 2012, MasterCard says new taxi firms, newsagents, bookstores, supermarkets, convenience stores, pharmacies, service stations, parking lots, fast food restaurants, cafes, bars, cinemas and theatres that accept its cards will have to have at least one PayPass enabled terminal.
By April 2014 all existing cards will have to be PayPass-enabled and all merchants have payment terminals that can accept them.
Explaining the move, Eddie Grobler, divisional president, MasterCard, says: "We know that customers want PayPass. Between June and December 2010, we saw growth in the number of PayPass transactions in Australia of over 235%."
Meanwhile, the company is bidding to step up security by insisting that all new and reissued cards provided by Australian banks must be EMV capable by this October.
All terminals must be compliant by April 2012 in Australia and July 2011 in New Zealand, meaning that non-EMV compliant providers will be liable for any fraud from these dates.
By April 2013, online merchants must provide either MasterCard SecureCode authentication or the equivalent for transactions over $200 and at the end of 2015, all ATMs in Australia must be EMV enabled. To force the change, from next April MasterCard will begin a liability shift between Australia and New Zealand for ATM transactions based on who is the EMV capable party.