MasterCard Worldwide announced that several near field communications-enabled smartphones have been certified on its MasterCard PayPass technology. The phones are cleared by MasterCard to meet its standards for providing secure contactless payments.

The new MasterCard-certified devices include phones from BlackBerry, the Bold 9900/9790 and Curve 9360/9380; HTC One X; Intel Smartphone Reference Device; LG's Viper 4G LTE and Optimus Elite; Nokia's 603 and Lumia 610 NFC; and Samsung's Wave Y, Galaxy mini 2, Galaxy S Advance and the Galaxy Nexus.

MasterCard also announced its new brand identifier: "MasterCard PayPass Ready." The brand identifier, which differs from NFC logos of other manufacturers and industry organizations, is available for use by handset manufacturers to show that their devices are NFC-enabled and have been certified by MasterCard. The company said Nokia and BlackBerry will be supporting the brandmark.

"In the near future, millions of phones will ship with NFC technology embedded within them," said Mung Ki Woo, MasterCard's group executive for mobile. "The new PayPass Ready identifier will help consumers make informed device purchasing decisions by providing a visual mark that indicates devices are certified to make simple, smart and secure payments via the MasterCard PayPass network."

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