Global payment solutions major Mastercard may soon launch a payment technology for small merchants in India, where a smartphone will double up as a point-of-sale (PoS) machine.

Mastercard has launched the same in the US and a few other developed markets.

With Mastercard’s ‘Tap & Go’ technology, small businesses and merchants will be able to accept contactless payments with the help of an NFC-enabled smartphone.

The technology will not only save merchants from investing in bulkier and expensive PoS machines, but also help them process the payments faster as it does not require a PIN. The company is already in talks with various banks for the contactless PoS machines.

Talking to BusinessLine , Rajeev Kumar, Senior Vice-President, Market Development, South Asia, Mastercard, said: “We are investing heavily in the contactless PoS for India’s growing SME sector. This technology is very cost-effective and has a quicker check-out feature, which is effective for small transactions below Rs. 2,000.”

Kumar said that 80 per cent of the transactions in India are below Rs. 2,000, and Mastercard’s contactless technology will help the company tap the growing SME segment.

India had about 13 lakh PoS terminals by the end of 2016, the year demonetisation was initiated.

However, in the last two years, the number has grown to 50 lakh, and the company expects to empower one crore PoS by 2020.

“It took us 30 years to reach the 13-lakh number, but demonetisation helped us scale faster than expected,” said Kumar, adding that 70 per cent of the new merchants will be from the small and micro business segment in Asia’s third-largest economy, where 90 per cent of the transactions are in cash.

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