Private lender RBL Bank today announced a strategic alliance with Mastercard to expand digital payments acceptance network in India.
Since demonetisation, the bank has added more than 500,000 merchant acceptance or Point-of-Sale (PoS) locations, fastest ever by any bank during this timeframe.
This partnership between Mastercard and RBL Bank is an endeavour to take digital payments to the untapped geographies and industry segments.
Mastercard with the banks, merchants, fintech companies, payments facilitators including the regulators towards the creation of a robust digital payments ecosystem.
In a bid to expand its digital payment acceptance footprint, RBL Bank signed partnerships with several Payment Facilitators.
These partnerships have enabled the lender in expanding its payments acceptance network in tier 2 and 3 cities. This also helped RBL to facilitate greater acceptance for digital payments in traditionally cash driven industry segments such as education and healthcare.
“Mastercard has played a pivotal role in facilitating the smooth onboarding of the fintech companies and Payment Facilitators. We are confident that this collaboration will go a long way in further strengthening our footprint in the acceptance network,” said Rajeev Ahuja, Executive Director & Head of Strategy, RBL Bank.
“Mastercard has been working towards accelerating awareness and acceptance for digital payments in India, especially in tier 2 and 3 markets. A robust digital payment ecosystem is key to achieve this. Mastercard’s partnership with RBL Bank is an important step in this journey, as it unleashes several avenues for growth of digital payments across India. With partnerships like these, Mastercard is certain that India will be the largest digital payments acceptance market by 2020,” said Rajeev Kumar, senior vice president, Market Development, South Asia, Mastercard.
As a part of the effort to create a digital payments ecosystem in India, Mastercard has initiated a series of steps. Earlier this year, Mastercard organized Acceptance Forums in Bangalore and Mumbai, with more than 250 participants from Banks and Payment Facilitators. Following this, Mastercard also introduced Payment Facilitator Accelerator Consulting programme in association with a leading external consultant. The program provides the participants the necessary guidance for growth via partnerships and manage their risk effectively.
