Extracts from the interview of President of Mastercard Europe Mark Barnett to Vedomosti daily.

We think we are the only truly multidisciplinary company in the world specialized on payment technologies. Multi-directionality is the basis of our strategy. Of course, we are likely to place more emphasis on contactless technology now. E-commerce definitely comes first. But overall the strategy remains unchanged.

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There is also a very interesting project in Northern Europe – the PR27. We want to participate in the creation of the first international multi-currency clearing system in the world, where payments will be made in real time for all the countries of Northern Europe. It is a very important part of our future, instant payments in P27 will be made in euro and other currencies of Northern European countries.

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B2b transfers are a very important part of our development strategy having a huge potential. We can partially work with b2b transfers using cards, virtual card number technology, and technology such as Mastercard MoneySend. But we can also manage these cash flows through instant settlement systems or account-to-account transfers. This complies with our strategy of multi-directionality. In Europe corporate payments at retail outlets make about $13 trillion per year. But the total amount of payments is about $60 trillion, i.e. the remaining funds are transferred from an account to account in batch mode or in real time using checks and some other tools.

We would like to not only participate in these transactions, but to develop apps and services for them which would provide added value. For example we have Pay by Bank app in Great Britain, to make account-to-account transfers. It allows using the mobile banking app to shop online- easy and simple.

Another example is the service for fighting money laundering. It helps to identify dubious payments in all instant payment systems in the country. It is extremely hard for the bank to effectively fight money laundering alone because money comes to the account and then moves from one account to another in different banks. Countries that have instant money transfer systems can start dealing with that problem by seeing all transactions between all accounts of all the banks. Today, 40 banks are using this service in the UK, and we hope to bring it to other countries.

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I think biometrics will be actively developing as a means to identify the users. It is much better than passwords and SMS verification code. We have recently invested in behavioral biometrics. The way you hold the phone, enter the text- these factors help determine whether you are the one actually making the payment. I think biometrics will be extremely vital in the future. There is a study showing that to secure their data people prefer using biometrics rather than passwords.

But I think we will eventually come to digital identification (Digital ID). This is a difficult path since  it requires a systematic solution involving people, governments, banks, telecommunications operators and retailers. But in the end, the digital ID is stored securely online in a distributed system. This is the future, because it is very easy to use such a system for payments.

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Sooner or later absolutely everything becomes outdated but payment cards will still be used for a very long time. This piece of plastic does not take up much space in your wallet, but it can be used to make contactless payments, including paying for expensive purchases, and many countries are introducing contactless technology. It is very convenient to simply hold the card to the terminal. You can pay with a smartphone the same way (like I am doing), use a ring or a watch.

The same can be said about cash: we will still use cash for a long time, but the number of situations when we may need it and people using cash gradually decreases. But there still will people who would want to use cash. I think cards provide a really convenient payment option and will be in use for a long time.

Mark Barnett was appointed President of Mastercard European business on June 1.  Mastercard’s European business encompasses 53 countries, serving over 950 million cardholders.

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