MasterCard and mFoundry announced an international collaboration that will enable more banks to give their customers the option to pay for items with their mobile phones. In addition to the partnership, MasterCard announced that it has made a strategic investment in mFoundry.

The collaboration and investment will combine MasterCard’s Tap & Go PayPass technology with mFoundry’s mobile financial services platform to make mobile contactless payments accessible to more consumers. Mobile PayPass, which uses near field communication technology, enables people to pay simply by tapping their NFC phone on any PayPass-enabled terminal at a merchant check-out.

The companies believe mobile phones provide the most promising tool for NFC payments, as consumers increasingly use their smartphones for a host of functions, including managing their finances. In the second quarter of 2011, comScore, a research and analysis firm, reported that 32.5 million Americans accessed mobile banking information on their mobile devices, a 21% increase from the fourth quarter of 2010. That works out to almost 14% of all U.S. mobile subscribers now access banking information through their devices, according to comScore. mFoundry already provides mobile banking solutions for more than 560 banks and credit unions.

MasterCard and mFoundry also will collaborate to provide mobile phone operators an application that supports Mobile PayPass, allowing them to offer mobile contactless payments to their customers and providing an even greater opportunity to put mobile payments in the hands of consumers.