« Reno Tahoe, Nevada hosts Miss USA and Miss Teen USA Contests. | Main | First Boeing Apache Helicopter formally handed over to the Indian Air Force »
May 9, 2019
Mastercard Bullish on India, Announces US$1 Billion Additional Investment
New Delhi, 8 May 2019 - Mastercard, a leading technology company in the global payments industry, today announced an investment of US$1 billion over the next five years in India, in addition to its earlier investment of US$1 billion between 2014-19.
This additional investment tranche underscores Mastercard’s long-term commitment to the government’s “Make in India” and “Digital India” vision and reflects the company’s confidence in the market. A significant part of this investment will go towards establishing a full on-soil domestic transactions processing center in and for India.
Mastercard would direct another part of its investment towards building out a Services Hub focused on developing & delivering other value-added services such as authentication, tokenization, cybersecurity, intelligence solutions, and data analytics. Significant investment in technical capabilities will allow processing of domestic transactions in India, and also provide the potential for the co-design and co-development of such services and solutions locally.
Commenting on the strategic investment and the longer-term business strategy, Ari Sarker, co-president, Asia Pacific, Mastercard said: “India is a unique country with a progressive payments ecosystem. We are excited with our incremental and significant investment plans for this market, which we believe will be compelling differentiators for us. This investment builds on what is an enduring and focused strategy for us in this market, and will also enable us to explore avenues to expand our regional collaborations and partnerships while deepening our commitment to the government’s vision of moving towards a cashless society.”
Mastercard has been consistently and rapidly expanding its presence and investment in India. This incremental investment builds on the previous investment of INR 6,500 crore (US$1 billion) between 2014 and 2019, which included two major acquisitions, new offices in Bengaluru and Gurugram, a Mastercard Lab & Operations Hub in Pune, and a Technology Centre in Vadodara.
The company is also driving a fundamental shift from financial inclusion to inclusive growth through various initiatives aimed at accelerating the digital acceptance infrastructure. There has been an increase from the 1.2 million merchant acceptance points in 2016 to about 5.2 million merchants currently, with a stated commitment to digitally enabling 10 million merchants by 2020. Mastercard has also worked for years with the Confederation of all India Traders (CAIT) 70 million merchants and traders to enhance awareness and adoption of digital payments. Additionally, Mastercard assists the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) as an Authentication Service Agency (ASA) for providing Aadhaar-based authentication and e-KYC services that help benefit disbursement and further drive last-mile financial inclusion.
With the rise in the number of connected devices, there is an imperative and opportunity to protect the digital payments ecosystem. Mastercard is working with partners to develop and implement technologies, processes, and expertise that prevent, detect and resolve threats while also enhancing the payments experience. Currently, Mastercard is driving tokenization for payments that will strengthen the security of stored card credentials, provide advanced authentication to reduce checkout errors and expedite the online checkout experience.
Source: Mastercard
|GlobalGiants.Com|
Edited & Posted by the Editor | 11:09 AM | Link to this Post
