Progress is being made to secure credit cards against fraud, Chris McWilton, MasterCard's president of North America, told CNBC Monday.

MasterCard (MA) and other credit card companies have developed high-tech chip cards, which have a microchip embedded.

"We think about half the cards in circulation by the end of '15 will be chip enabled and about half the merchant terminals at merchants around the country will be chip enabled," McWilton said in an interview with " Squawk on the Street ."

"We're making momentum, we've started the process and that's going to be a big part of securing payments going forward."

Read More 'Massive' switch to new credit cards ahead

Concerns about security kicked into high gear after security breaches at Target (TGT) last holiday season and Home Depot (HD) this year. Just last week, Staples (SPLS) confirmed a data breach may have affected 1.16 million cards.

And while the mobile payment revolution has some bypassing plastic, McWilton said he expects physical credit cards to still be the main preference of shoppers in 2015. That's because using credit cards is very easy for consumers, he noted.

"You're not displacing a terrible experience, and because of that it will take mobile commerce a little bit of time to get some scale," he said.

That said he believes Apple's entering the mobile payment field with Apple Pay was the "elephant stepping on the scales of mobile payment traction."

Read More Apple just got reinforcements in mobile payments battle

On another note, McWilton was enthusiastic about the prospect of doing business in Cuba.

Earlier this week, President Barack Obama announced the U.S. was re-establishing diplomatic ties with the communist country.

"I think it's great. Any time you get free commerce between countries, that's great for our network," McWilton said.

"When you open an economy like Cuba, hopefully you'll see economic reforms. They'll see prosperity, and we'll see great volume in that space."