Nearly one year after marking its foray into the mobile payments arena with PayPass, US credit-card company MasterCard unveiled a 'virtual wallet' - the company's MasterPass service, which effectively is an app - on Monday, for enabling customers to keep details pertaining to personal payments in their handsets and avoid checkouts in-store bar code scanning for making payments.

According to MasterCard, the new MasterPass service will unfold a mechanism whereby customers will not have to approach a cashier a cashier for making payments for the goods purchased by them. Instead, they would be able to make payments by merely scanning a bar code and creating a digital receipt on their mobile device that can be shown when they exit the store.

About the recently-unveiled `virtual wallet,' MasterCard said that the service can also be used for more convenient online payments, giving the customers a "one click" advantage for paying, without the bother of having to input of their credit or debit card details each time they make a purchase.

Noting that the MasterPass system will be rolled out gradually in different countries over the coming months, MasterCard said that the service will first be made available in Australia and Canada by March-end; to be followed by the US launch in spring; and the UK release in summer.

The retailers and banks participating in the MasterPass system will include Argos, American Airlines, Spain's BBVA and Santander banks, Citigroup in the US, Italy's Intesa Sanpaolo and Sweden's Swedbank.