MasterCard recently announced the launch of Mobile MoneySend for US based person to person (P2P) payments. This service leverages infrastructure developed internally at MasterCard as a service to participating banks and elements of the pre-existing service Obopay which has been using MasterCard prepaid debit cards and a mechanism for storing value at the receiving end of a P2P transaction for a few years now.

The success of this program will really depend on banks signing up to participate and actively marketing its use to accountholders. So far, only one bank has signed up and agreed to participate in the announcement. Bank agnostic solutions like PayPal and Obopay have existed for a number of years. In particular PayPal has thrived from its use in Ebay auctions and other websites with simple ecommerce needs. However, even after so many years of PayPal being a household name, it is rare to hear “Hey, Jake…I’ll PayPal you $20 for my share of dinner.” This is the use case that is most often cited in P2P product business cases, and just does not mesh with current consumer reality.

Without intensive marketing, consumer training and incentives, it will be difficult to get this market using their phones for making simple payments between friends and family.  However, I hope banks get behind this and make the effort needed to create a new, and simpler way for people to pay each other.

Read more about the MasterCard announcement…