Written by  Shelly Palmer

For MasterCard, the future of payments isn’t an either-or situation for traditional plastic or digital methods. MasterCard MasterPass aims to streamline your entire shopping experience while bridging the gap between real world and digital payments. MasterPass is the next step in the company’s PayPass Wallet services, which brought NFC checkout systems to more than 700,000 merchants.

The digital service, announced today at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, lets consumers use NFC, QR codes, tags or mobile devices to make purchases. You can use a regular payment card or an enabled mobile device (or even your desktop PC), and MasterPass can be used online and in brick-and-mortar stores.

MasterCard is essentially negating the need for you to whip out your credit card unless that’s how you want to pay at that moment.