MasterCard has released its Mobile MasterCard PayPass User Interface Software Development Kit (UI SDK), a toolkit designed to help developers create contactless payment processing apps for mobile phones, according to Banking Business Review.

The free software will be available to programmers and developers around the world. Using the toolkit, issuers, mobile network operators and a wide pool of third-party developers will be able to create near-field communications (NFC) payment processing applications for Android and BlackBerry OS 7 mobile operating systems.

"As we continue to lead the industry with mobile and contactless payments innovations, we saw an opportunity to simultaneously help our partners and improve the overall user experience," said Mung Woo, a MasterCard group executive, in a statement. He added that consumers are increasingly gaining comfort and familiarity with mobile and contactless payments. This puts the onus on financial institutions and mobile network operators to buttress their infrastructure in preparation to meet consumer demand for innovative payment options.

Woo and his company's emphasis on the trend of mobile payments is backed up by a deluge of data. According to a study by Juniper Research, NFC-enabled phones are estimated to account for in excess of $75 billion worth of transactions by 2013. While MasterCard has already approved more than 70 different cellphone models as Mobile PayPass compatible devices, and the release of the toolkit allows developers to cater to users with other mobile phone designs.

According to Finextra, the toolkit includes a host of features designed to be programmer-friendly. These include application programming interface (API) code librarires, API specification documentation, sample user interface (UI) app codes, a developer guide and a test suite to ensure full compliance.