MasterCard's emerging payments leader, Ed McLaughlin, may have been inadvertently pushed into fueling the off and on rumors of the iPhone getting NFC (near-field communications) support. When discussing adoption in an interview with Fast Company, he made the unusual statement that he didn't know of any phone maker that "isn't in the process" of implementing MasterCard's PayPass NFC system. When pressed on whether that included Apple, he stopped short of admitting a partnership but implied that Apple was a partner.
