Mastercard and Razorpay to empower MSMEs to use digital payments

By Edil Corneille

To drive digital payments acceptance by small businesses and startups in India, global payments technology company Mastercard and Bangalore-based Razorpay have launched a strategic partnership that combines Razorpay’s payment processing capabilities with Mastercard’s digital banking solutions and card services.

The partnership will empower Indian micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in digitising their operations, maintaining business continuity and preparing for the future beyond cash.

Before the outbreak of COVID-19, a majority of India’s retail payments was conducted in cash. In recent months, the pandemic has accelerated the adoption of digital technologies and rapidly shifted how consumers prefer to shop and pay. This presents a great opportunity to unite merchants, consumers, acquirers and FinTech companies in expanding the adoption of digital payments in India.

Presently, SMEs and startups require the establishment of a digital footprint to build their customer base and meet the demand for secure, convenient and touch-free transactions. With their partnership, Mastercard and Razorpay will work together to cater to the needs of MSMEs.

“We’re going through one of the biggest transformations in Indian financial history – the FinTech Revolution – that will significantly alter the payment and banking experience of consumers and businesses now and in the years to come. New businesses are evolving every day with different payment and banking needs and catering to a different set of consumers and markets. We are excited about strengthening our partnership with Mastercard, the global payments and technology leader, in furthering digital adoption and equipping millions of businesses, especially in tier 2 and 3 cities, with industry-leading technologies that will help ensure business resilience,” said Amitabh Tewary, Chief Innovation Officer, Razorpay.

“One of the initiatives that we will be working on jointly is to make recurring payments more accessible to businesses and consumers by creating seamless onboarding solutions for bill payments, digital content platforms and other subscription services. I’m looking forward to the advancements that our partnership will continue to make in the digital payments space.”

Mastercard will continue to enable the ease of payments for merchants and payment aggregators to help them grow their businesses.

“Mastercard is excited to extend its partnership with Razorpay, India’s youngest unicorn, on a strategic level,” said Rajeev Kumar K, Senior Vice President, Market Development, South Asia, Mastercard. “Mastercard aims to make merchants across India digitally equipped and welcomes the fresh thoughts and technology that Razorpay will bring to help achieve this goal. Mastercard is committed to developing safe, secure and more convenient ways to make payments with its technology and expertise and is confident this partnership will deliver that and more.”