Deutsche Telekom and MasterCard have announced a pan-European mobile payments partnership.

The first consumer roll-out will take place in Poland later this year, with the aim of giving all of the Germany-based operator’s 93 million customers a service in due course.

German consumers, for example, will be part of a trial that involves mobile phone tags and cards this year before a mobile wallet service is introduced early next year.

“We want to build a comprehensive ecosystem around mobile payment, helping DT to realize its strategy of being the first choice for customers regarding connected life and work," said Thomas Kiessling, DT’s chief product and innovation officer.

Ovum analysts Angel Dobardziev and Eden Zoller described DT’s strategy as having a “commendable goal”.

“DT is working to ready the market and strengthen its brand association with financial services by becoming a credit card issuer for MasterCard,” they said.

“It is looking to improve the retail infrastructure for mobile payments by acting as a sales partner for NFC enabled Point of Sale (POS) terminals.

However, they warned that the operator had taken on some notable challenges.

“DT's strategy is very broad and may be challenging to execute well in so many different areas and across the different geographies that it operates in,” they said. 

DT said it will issue MasterCard products via its subsidiary company ClickandBuy.