Mastercard has announced a new mobile service that will make it easier for customers to find an ATM when they need one. Mastercard cardholders can now find an AMT using their phones, thanks to a location-based search and directory service.

What customers need to do is call 1-877-FIND-ATM and state their current location. After this, they can choose to receive a SMS message, with information about the location of the nearest MasterCard ATM.

"MasterCard's new SMS option for ATM Locator provides an invaluable service to cardholders," said Jonathan Cetnarski, senior vice president, Information Products and Services at MasterCard Advisors. "People don't always have a pen or paper handy to write the ATM locations down, so SMS becomes an intuitive and convenient way to get the information they need. Travelers can finally go paperless in confidence."

The voice-activated ATM Locator application has been developed by Convergys Corporation. The application is hosted on Convergys' SpeechPort and it processes the received calls using speech recognition technologies. Then, it sends the location of the caller to MasterCard, which searches the information on a central ATM database. The information is further transmitted to Mobile 365, whose role is to send the SMS message to the caller's phone.

The service is available free of charge for MasterCard cardholders and is compatible with most of the mobile carriers in the U.S.