MasterCard explores future of retailing at Harvard

As the pay fobs and card swipers take over, the one item you increasingly don’t need at the store is cash in your pocket. On March 20, a pair of MasterCard executives will peer further into commerce yet-to-come at “The 2013 Innovation Project,” a conference hosted by PYMNTS.com at Harvard University.

Gary Flood, president of global products and solutions for Purchase-based MasterCard, and Ed McLaughlin, the company”™s chief emerging payments officer, will address advancing “the dialogue of how electronic payments enable everyday commerce, economic growth and financial inclusion.”

Flood will host the morning session with former Vice President Al Gore and other industry executives. Their topic, according to MasterCard, will be “debating the impact of technology in a world that is moving from cash to electronic payments.”

McLaughlin will join a panel that is exploring changing consumer behavior as the physical and the digital converge.