MasterCard wants to be part of PMJDY

Global payment services company MasterCard on Wednesday called for the Prime Minister Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY) integrating other players, including itself, for rolling out the latter’s schemes currently, PMJDY is only being handled through RuPay.

Talking to Deccan Herald, MasterCard Division President (South Asia) and Country Corporate Officer (India) Ari Sarker expressed dissatisfaction towards the Government of India’s move to go with RuPay cards for the roll out of Prime Minister Jan Dhan Yojana. 

The government should have allowed all payment gateways like MasterCard and Visa, among others, he said, adding that his company had taken up the matter with the government to open it for all, but to no avail.

“Our competition is not with RuPay... but it is with cash. The card usage is set to grow further as more people are brought under banking services through the Jan Dhan Yojana. Our aim is to support the government’s vision which is paperless economy,” Sarker said.  

Meanwhile, MasterCard has set up a technology centre in Pune to develop products for the global customers in the banking and financial services and is planning to add 500 more headcount.

“The company has invested $250million, including three acquisitions made last year. The company, which has a similar facility in Vadodara, Gujarat, plans to take the total headcount of its technology operations to 1,500 people by the end of this year,” Sarker said.

India currently represents about 10 per cent of MasterCard’s global workforce across various business units.

MasterCard had acquired Vadodara-based C-SAM, and Pune- based ECS last year, which helped it set up development and processing expertise in India.

“There is a significant increase in cross-border frauds in the banking industry which is a big security issue in banking transactions. We are developing products to deal with these issues through our technology centres,” Sarker added.

An average 11,000 attacks take place to breach the MasterCard security firewall everyday. “The two facilities represent our largest Tech Hub outside of the US.
These centres play a key role in driving development of cutting-edge payment technologies aimed at enabling a cashless world,” Sarker said.

MasterCard has over 180 million customers in India and is growing 20 per cent annually.