PURCHASE, New York-headquartered MasterCard Inc. claims its deals with Philippines-based firms advance mobile point of sale (mPOS) technology in the country.
One of these deals is with Globe Telecom Inc. (GTI) that MasterCard said would enable small and medium businesses (SMBs) in the Philippines to accept debit- and credit-card payments via mPOS.
“Mobile devices are giving smaller merchants the capability to transform the payments experience for their customers, especially at the point of sale [POS], as they now can accept card payments,” Raj Dhamodharan was quoted in a statement as saying.
Dhamodharan, MasterCard’s group head of emerging payments in Asia and the Pacific, said the company sees small businesses and mobile merchants, such as insurance agents and food-delivery businesses, turning to mPOS solutions “more and more” to help expand their customer base and sales.
“This, in turn, is helping to displace cash in the country, paving the way for a cashless society.”
Through GTI’s wholly owned subsidiary G-Xchange Inc., the operator of GCash and Globe myBusiness, MasterCard introduced a solution that converts mobile phones into POS card terminals accepting debit- and credit-card payments.
Called “Globe Charge,” the technology requires a mobile-card reader into a mPOS unit. Still, the solution eliminates the need for traditional, clunky and more expensive card terminals.
MasterCard also noted McDonalds’s restaurant operations in the Philippines, which uses what is called “contactless card payment” technology. Dhamodharan said Golden Arches Development Corp. expects there will be an upsurge in the use of mPOS because of the stronger consumption patterns, not only in the Philippines, bust also in rest of Asia.
“The rapid growth in contactless and mobile payments is expected to continue given there is just so much cash that needs to be displaced in the region.” MasterCard said consumers across the Asia-Pacific region are embracing contactless payments, with the number of unique contactless users (or tappers) in 2014 growing by 49 percent from 2013.
According to research by the Annapolis Consulting Group, the use of mPOS worldwide is estimated to grow from 8 million in 2013 to 18 million in 2017. This will be led, in part, by the roll-out of MasterCard’s mPOS technology in the region.
The report said Australia remains the leader in number of taps and tappers with nearly two-thirds of all MasterCard in-store transactions being contactless.
On the other hand, MasterCard Singapore recorded an all-time high for contactless payments, driven by the number of MasterCard contactless users in the country, which more than doubled in 2014 compared to 2013. Hong Kong has also seen the benefit of a strong marketing push with the growth of contactless transactions more than quadrupling in 2014 year-on-year.
Predominantly cash-based in the past, developing markets have had a definite shift to new payment technologies, with mPOS being one of the key drivers across Asia Pacific in 2014, according to MasterCard.
In its April report, Pymnts.com Llc. said mPOS “continues to grow as merchants continue to experiment with solutions that enable a more mPOS experience for themselves and their customers.”
The company cited Boston Retail Partners in its report that said nearly 300 percent more retailers plan to deploy mPOS solutions to better serve their businesses.
“A great majority of that activity is in the ‘tablet’-enabled POS space that gives smaller merchants a more integrated solution to power the front and back facing parts of their organizations.”
Sri Lankan firm Epic Lanka Group was quoted in the report as saying its executives see a high demand for mPOS payments from doctors, lawyer, beauticians, consultants and trainers who want to reduce the risk and hassle of collecting cash.
Rizal Raoul Reyes and Dennis D. Estopace