OTP Bank Hungary has become the first European bank to launch a digital wallet with an integrated MasterPass application programming interface, according to announcements from MasterCard and app developer Cellum. MasterPass is a digital platform developed by MasterCard that allows users to pay online or at the point of sale with cards stored in their electronic wallet.

The OTPay mobile app, developed by Hungarian company Cellum, will allow consumers to use their smartphone to pay for purchases at 30,000 MasterPass-accepting online merchants worldwide. They will also be able to carry out bill payments, prepaid top-ups and P2P transfers.

The OTPay wallet also will be available to people who are not customers of OTP Bank. After downloading the OTPay app, users will be able to register a variety of other card brands as well as MasterCard and Maestro with their MasterPass wallet.

Providing international shopping was a main reason for adopting MasterPass, Péter Forrai, OTP Bank's managing director of electronic banking directorate, said in a statement. "Recently, we have realized a growing demand for mobile payment solutions, which not only provide a high level of comfort and security for the customer but are also open to accept cards from different schemes and even functions," Forrai said in a statement.

"We are extremely proud to be the first to integrate a third-party mobile wallet to MasterPass," Balázs Inotay, Cellum's founder, said. "Cellum has always believed that interoperability is going to break the bottleneck of mobile payment. Apart from security and simplicity, this is the most important feature that we have to bring to the market."

Systems operated by Cellum currently manage more than 2 million secure mobile transactions per month. The company counts among its customers and partners MasterCard, IBM, Magyar Telekom, Telenor, FHB Bank, OTP Bank and Vivacom.