A Smartphone Payment App? For That There's MasterCard

Piqued by Visa's latest efforts at contactless payment goodness with an iPhone case, MasterCard really wants in on the same game. Only the card for "everything else" wants developers to actually write apps for it, leveraging proprietary tech.

MasterCard's announcement, made today, is less technologically advanced than Visa's system, but possibly more intriguing: Something akin to PayPal's trick last year, MasterCard is actually opening up its custom financial code to developers. With access...