The march of contactless card payments towards ubiquity is proceeding, at least in the case of debit card and credit card users opting to tap their MasterCard branded cards. Contactless payments by card holders in Australia now account for more than 80 per cent of MasterCard payments, Andrew Cartwright, country manager for Mastercard Australia told a media briefing yesterday.  How much "more" than 80 per cent Cartwright would not say.  As recently as October 2016 the quartet of Australian banks seeking to boycott Apple Pay put contactless payments at 74 per cent of card payments. Cartwright would not be drawn at the briefing into detailed discussion of trends in mobile payments, including Android Pay and Samsung Pay as well as Apple Pay."Phone payments are still a new technology," he said. "Contactless was a seven year journey and phone payments are just at the start of the journey."MasterCard outlined plans to encourage card issuers in Australia to introduce biometric identity methods in connection with mobile payments, a technology adopted so far in 16 markets.