PoS players raise their game as biggies enter cards space

BENGALURU: The entry of Reliance Jio, Paytm and other new-age digital payment companies into the traditional card payments business has set alarm bells ringing in the sector, and incumbents are building moats to protect their turf from disruption.

Players such as Pine Labs, Innoviti Payments and Worldline are working on new technology-led devices to not only retain merchants, but also attract retailers from smaller cities into the digital payments fold. PoS deployer Pine Labs is testing an Androidbased smart payment terminal that offers an easy-to-use interface for merchants. It lets merchants showcase EMI offers, has a customer feedback mechanism and even scans barcodes and IMEI numbers.

Pine Labs is also working on an app-based payment platform for micro merchants, which can accept wallets, cards and other payment modes. “We are shaping up Pine Labs as a merchant transaction platform which allows all forms of payments, facilitates lending, offers data analytics and much more,” said Vicky Bindra, CEO, Pine Labs.

Innoviti Payments has started deploying Android terminals and has converted 2% of its existing user base into smart PoS terminals. It has set a target of taking this to 20% by March 2020.

“Innoviti has used ‘ResponseNative’ technology to develop an Android platform that allows each terminal’s application to be configurable centrally,” said Rajeev Agrawal, chief executive officer, Innoviti Payments. “Among small merchants, it is used for integrating billing and payments, and among organised ones it is for roaming checkout.”

French payments company Worldline, which has a major presence in India, has also forayed into this segment and hopes to roll out smart devices this month. “The new devices will be a bit more expensive but will offer many services to the merchants like downloads of wholesale merchant apps and enable easy credit solutions for consumers,” said Deepak Chandnani, managing director, South Asia and Middle East, Worldline.

The incumbent players hope to use technology to create differentiated services and protect their business. “We are trying to create a moat through implementation of latest technology and high value addition so that the merchants’ complete transaction needs are taken care of,” said Bindra.