JOIN USMumbai-based mobile PoS (point of sale) player Mswipe endeavours to acquire 2,00,000 merchants by December 2016.
“At present, we have a customer base of 85,000 merchants. Our endeavour is to acquire 2 lakh merchants by December 2016 and 10 lakh merchants by March 2020 in India, primarily in tier II and tier III towns,” Mswipe Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer Manish Patel told DH.
Founded in 2012, Mswipe has presence in 370 cities and 24 states in the country. The company, which addresses the card acquiring needs for large and small businesses, has raised undisclosed seed funding from Matrix Partners. In Series A and B, Mswipe has raised over $7 million from Matrix Partners, DSG Consumer, and Axis Bank. Finally, in Series C, it has raised $25 million (about Rs 160 crore) from US Hedge Fund Falcon Edge Capital, Meru Capital, and Ola Cabs.
Importance of tech
Highlighting the importance of technology, Patel said, “Mswipe’s web rocket technology ensures super-fast transactions even on 2G networks for the merchants in tier III and tier IV cities, and our payment modes have high connectivity (2G, Wi-Fi, and BT), and enable instant electronic receipts via SMS/email.”
Patel explained, “Not only this, the mPoS (mobile point of sale) device works both on smartphones and feature phones, and accepts all cards bearing VISA, American Express, Mastercard and RuPay logos including debit and credit cards. We have a fully certified and secure terminal, the Wisepad can be paired via Bluetooth with any computing host, mobile (iOS, Android, feature phone or Windows phone), PC or tablet. Using an app on the host device, the user can process a card transaction. All receipts to the card holder are electronic via SMS and/or email.”
On competition, Patel said, the mPoS market, especially among small and medium sized merchants, is far from being saturated.
In fact, India’s ratio of merchants enabling credit/debit card transactions to the number of cards is one of the lowest in the world.
The need of the hour is a robust credit card acceptance infrastructure and solutions that help merchants migrate to cashless transactions in a faster and easier way.