The business of cash-less payment service providers is thriving, thanks to the recent demonetization move from the government. With rising adaptation of cash-less payments, Mastercard is moving forward with contact-less payments.
Today, Mastercard has announced that it is partnering with Pine Labs in order to create more than 26,000 contactless payment terminals in India. The terminals will be set up across the key merchant stores in the country. The roll out is expected to take around one year.
The system will be powered by Mastercard contactless technology. It will enable merchants across Quick Service Restaurants (QSR), retail stores, cinemas and super markets to offer contactless terminals as an alternative method of payment to customers, allowing them greater ease and convenience of payments.
Further, the company says that the contactless payments solution will help merchants build greater efficiency in managing their costs and time by way of reducing check-out time at the counters and costs related to handling of cash.
Kush Mehra, President APAC, Pine Labs, one of the largest facilitator of electronic PoS in India, said,
Pine Labs is delighted to bring contactless payment acceptance in partnership with Mastercard, as it brings in benefits for merchants as well as customers, such as faster and secured check out plus reduced cost related to cash handling.
Enabling PoS for mobile Near Field Communication (NFC) payment acceptance is a logical step for us, as Pine Labs continuously strives to provide incremental value to its merchants and its customers, through its innovative payment solutions. Pine labs adheres to highest payment security standards and the same are implemented for NFC payments too.
As per Murali Nair, Senior Vice President of Mastercard for Market Development in South Asia, Mastercard contactless payments are accepted at more than 3 million merchant locations in 77 countries worldwide. He further added that:
Our partnership with Pine Labs will help us build a safe and secure contactless payments ecosystem in the country. This is aligned with Mastercard’s vision of a world beyond cash and using technology to make payments safer, simpler and smarter for the consumers.
Currently, more than 60,000 retailers across India are using PoS solution of Pine Labs to manage their payment acceptance. The payment solution of Pine Labs acceptance of all kinds of payments at PoS terminals, be it Credit/Debit Cards, EMI, Reward Points, Gift Vouchers, e-Wallet etc.
According to a market research report published by MarketsandMarkets, the size of contactless payments market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 21.2 percent from USD 6.70 billion in 2016 to USD 17.56 billion by 2021.
