This is another monumental release today. Mastercard announced its API to developers.  Carriers, mobile payment companies and online providers such as PayPal have all been driving toward the next generation of payment structures that would shape the mobile commerce world.  Japan has embraced bringing credit cards to mobile already in 2005, and now 5 years later we are seeing progress here in North America for this enabler that will lead to a seismic shift in how mobile and applications will evolve.  In the same breath, I saw a recruiting post for one of my favorite creative agencies CP+B looking for mobile developers.

This is the creative agency that rocked the world with some of the most disruptive CM’s such as ” The Kings Gone Crazy”, “Domino’s Pizza Crust has gone Cardboard” and many others….. and they represent American Express….

What is happening is that the media world is really shaping now around mobile. When the big creative agencies start to prioritize and the mobile commerce system is about to get in place are key indicators of all the different creative things we are going to see in not only the Top of the Funnel, but the Bottom of it as well.

Today was a very exciting day for me with mobile and the future of Brand Marketing and Commerce…

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In a press release this morning, MasterCard has announced that desktop and mobile developers will have access to an API from the credit card giant later this year. The company hopes that by opening its technology to developers, new and innovative e-commerce applications that leverage the MasterCard network will be created, potentially competing with the likes of Visa, PayPal and Square.

MasterCard Chief Innovation Officer Josh Peirez says the company is “excited about tapping into the ingenuity of software developers around the globe to help create the next generation of game-changing payment applications.” A newly launched portal – MasterCard Labs – will give developers access to APIs, SDKs, guides and forums for discussing and experimenting with the company’s technology.

The announcement comes at a time when the mobile-payments market has begun to heat up with competition between startups and large credit card providers. San Francisco-based startup Square has many people excited about its mobile application and dongle that allows credit cards to be scanned by various mobile devices; online payment staple PayPal recently teamed up with Bump Technologies to provide a mobile transaction service as well.

Visa also recently announced its own foray into the mobile payments market. Earlier this month, the MasterCard competitor teamed with DeviceFidelityto launch special cases for iPhones which would allow users to take advantage of Visa’s wireless and contact-less payment method, Visa payWave, straight from their phones.

But mobile payments is just one of the platforms MasterCard hopes developers will innovate on using its technology. The company says it has identified 20 other areas in which their APIs could be used, including payroll systems, social networking applications, eWallets, and online games. With the growing popularity of sites like Blippy, which allows users to automatically share their credit card purchases with their friends, MasterCard may be providing a valuable API to developers at a ripe moment for these kinds of platforms and services.

Many have been skeptical about these new services due to apparent security risks that come from mobile payment systems, but MasterCard is taking precautions to make sure their platform is not abused. According to its press release this morning, “all developers will be approved and registered by MasterCard to ensure that MasterCard payment and data services continue to be used appropriately and productively.”