MasterCard will add tokenization to its MasterPass NFC product “later this year,” the company’s top executive said today.

By adding tokenization, MasterCard will jump into the contactless fray, joining the likes Apple Pay, Android Pay and Samsung Pay.

Ajay Banga, president and chief executive officer of MasterCard, told investors at a conference today that “tokenization is a very large endeavor in the company right now.”

Banga said the payments network is spending “large money” and assigning a great number of its staff to implementing tokenization in MasterPass.

“It is key to security and safety in digital transactions,” Banga said of tokenization.

MasterCard has a market capitalization of about $105 billion.

Banga first disclosed that MasterCard would beef up its MasterPass product earlier this year, but did not offer a timetable for the implementation of tokenization, saying only that it would come “over the next period of time.” Already, there are ventures springing up that will likely leverage the enhanced MasterPass, including PureWrist.

Interestingly, Banga said the competitor to MasterPass is not the other NFC payment services. Rather, it is cash. He pointed out that a vast majority of transactions are still conducted in cash, not with cards, let alone with BrandX Pay. Even in San Francisco, payment for taxi rides today must be made with greenbacks. “And that’s where everyone is cool,” he said.