Mastercard Commits to Empower 10 Million Merchants with Digital Payments Acceptance

Mastercard expressed commitment to empower 10 million merchants across India with digital payments acceptance capabilities by 2020. The commitment was made during REACH – Mastercard Acceptance Summit 2019. The event witnessed exciting talks and panel discussions with senior executives from Mastercard, leading banks like SBI, RBL Bank, Yes Bank and Axis Bank; and leading fintech players.

Currently, about 5 million merchants across the country are equipped to accept digital payments. Elaborating upon the vision, Rajeev Kumar, senior vice president, Market Development, South Asia, Mastercard said that merchants are an important element of India’s digital economy. Mastercard’s commitment to increase digital payments acceptance among merchants requires three critical things, i.e., education and awareness, development of low cost acceptance solutions, and merchant on-boarding through accelerator programs. Therefore, Mastercard is partnering with fintech companies, acquirers, Payments Facilitators, industry bodies, and regulators.

Mastercard’s partnership with fintech companies such as Mosambee, Zoho, and Signzy has resulted into several unique, low cost, easy to use solutions that allow merchants to accept different digital payments in different form factors. The company is also working in collaboration with various banks to expand the acceptance network. Its partnership with RBL Bank has added over 500,000 merchant acceptance or Point-of-Sale (PoS) locations since demonetization in November 2016, fastest by any bank during this period. Similarly, Mastercard’s partnership with South Indian Bank resulted into ‘Merchant-in-a-Box’, a bundled tool kit that makes payments acceptance easy for micro-merchants and SMEs.

To take merchant and consumer awareness to the last mile, Mastercard has introduced several educational initiatives in tier 2 and 3 cities. These campaigns focus on creating a behavioral shift amongst merchants, and make them a part of India’s digital journey. Mastercard also introduced Payment Facilitator Accelerator Consulting program in association with a leading external consultant. The program provides the participants the necessary guidance for growth via partnerships and manage their risk effectively.