Shoppers at The Pavilion, a large shopping centre in Durban, can now pay for their parking using their mobile phones.

MasterCard has rolled out its digital wallet service, called MasterPass, at The Pavilion, allowing shoppers to pay using their phones. The shopping centre attracts 1,8m visitors a month.

It’s the first MasterPass parking payment facility to go live in South Africa, MasterCard said.

“Using digital payments to pay for parking removes the frustration that all shoppers experience at some point, including long queues, not having enough coins or the parking payment machine not accepting notes,” the payments company said.

To pay using their phones, shoppers scan a QR code on their parking tickets using the MasterPass smartphone application. They then enter the parking ticket number, choose a pre-loaded payment card to complete the transaction and enter their Pin number or request a one-time Pin. They then drive to the exit.