Mastercard To Convert Smartphones Into Mobile Points Of Sale In India

The US-based global payment and technology company, Mastercard, is all set to launch a technology in India where a smartphone can be used as a contactless acceptance device.

In other words, the phone with a near-field communication (NFC) can become a point-of-sale (PoS) device where a customer can tap the contactless card on the phone to accept the payment, explained Vikas Saraogi, vice president, acceptance development at Mastercard, in a recent interaction with BusinessLine.

The Near-field communication is a short-range wireless connectivity standard (Ecma-340, ISO/IEC 18092) that uses magnetic field induction to enable smartphones to accept payments when brought within a few centimetres of each other.

According to the report, Mastercard will be launching this solution in India early next year.

Saraogi also stated that the company is in talks with a lot of banks and fintech companies to launch the technology in India as soon as possible. It is expected to help retailers and merchants to experience the real power of contactless transactions.

“With this innovation, a retailer doesn’t have to invest in the hardware for accepting contactless payments. The phone will be more than enough,” – Saraogi.

The solution is part of the company’s campaign to increase contactless payments and build the acceptance infrastructure in the country, the report stated.

According to Mastercard, there are more than 15 Lakh contactless payment acceptance points in the country against the total PoS of about 42.5 Lakh.

Disrupting the space, Mastercard expects to double the contactless payment points to about 30 Lakh in the next two years. In the process, the company also claims to have deployed contactless payment acceptance infrastructure in restaurants, coffee shops, cinema halls, petrol pumps and supermarkets, where the ticket size is low.

Also, through its channel partners, banks and companies like PineLabs, the company has started enabling the majority of the key categories and large merchants to carry out contactless transactions, Saraogi added.

At present, the Mastercard contactless card limits the payments up to INR 2,000 and eliminates the two-step authentication.

In order to accelerate the acceptance and adoption of digital payments among the merchants in the country, Mastercard had also launched an initiative called Team Cashless India on October 16, 2019.

Through this initiative, Mastercard had collaborated with the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT), banks and fintech companies to promote digital payments across India.

CAIT, with its extensive network of over 70 Mn merchants and traders was said to provide the necessary scale and reach for Mastercard, followed by other partnered banks and fin-tech companies. With the help of the Team Cashless India campaign, Mastercard has planned to bring more merchants on-board to the digital economy.