Tag: mpos

mPOS technology is now being adopted in a collaboration that is occurring between banks an tech vendors.

As a part of a greater effort to try to boost card based transactions and to encourage financial inclusion, banks in Mexico are now working with vendors providing mobile payments technology in order to be able to roll out mPOS solutions at small business locations.

This type of initiative is being encouraged by the Mexican government in order to boost cashless transactions.

In Mexico, current statistics show that about 70 percent of all purchases in the country are being made in cash. Moreover, cash and the informal economy is making up about 30 percent of that country’s GDP. Sixty four percent of the 1 million grocery stores in Mexico are small businesses that are typically family owned. This helps to illustrate the importance that businesses of that size have on the Mexican economy, and the difference they could make in the adoption of mobile payments technology.

The success of mobile payments in the country are greatly dependent on the adoption by mom-and-pop stores.

According to the country manager for Visa Mexico, Luz Adriana Ramirez Chavez, “Mom-and-pop stores play a major part in Mexico’s retail economy, yet they lack the tools to compete effectively with larger retailers.” Ramirez Chavez went on to say that “By installing mPOS devices offering retail management software, they can have more control and grow their business. Also, when they start accepting cards, they benefit from higher sales tickets.”

In November, last year, Tableta Concanaco was launched. This is a program that is meant to provide SMEs and micro-businesses with mPOS technology. It was a combined effort between the Sistema de Administración Tributaria (SAT/Tax Administration system), the Mexican tax authority, and the Confederación de Cámaras Nacionales de Comercio, Servicios y Turismo (Concanaco – Servytur/Confederation of National Chambers of Commerce, Services and Tourism).

Beyond a subsidized tablet with a mobile payments point of sale subsidized software built in that provides electronic invoicing and inventory management, each of the business owners that participate in the program are also given a Visa debit card into which the card transactions from customers will be deposited.

GCB Bank has now become the latest to join with goSwiff for smartphone friendly point of sale services.

Global mobile payments innovator, goSwiff, has now partnered up with GCB Bank Ltd., bringing the total number of bank clients to fifty and giving more locations the opportunity to complete transactions at a point of sale through smartphones.

This will provide merchants and consumers with a new shopping opportunity at the checkout counter.

Equally, Simone Ranucci Brandimarte, the chief executive officer of the Singapore-based goSwiff, unveiled an entirely new business strategy for the global operations of the company. This addition of GCB Bank is the latest in a long and growing list of bank clients that have joined with the company in order to be able to offer mobile payments services to their merchant clients, within emerging markets.

Therefore, GCB Bank will be able to offer mobile payments services to its Ghana merchant customers.

The bank is the largest indigenous commercial bank in Ghana. According to the goSwiff chief strategy officer and President CEMEA, Erik Holst-Roness, GCB “leads the way in innovation with new banking technology. This is a bank with a strong commitment to customer service and the determination to make a change in the way their clients go about banking.”

The CEO of the bank, Simon Dornoo explained that he feels that the addition of the mobile point of sale system from goSwiff was a “natural choice” for them. He has observed the size of the company’s global experience and feels that by adding it to the options available to merchants, they will be able to enhance their “presence in the payment markets in Africa.”

Dornoo stated that the bank had been seeking a complete solution that would allow them to be able to develop this type of technology based service. They decided on goSwiff as the partner that they needed in order to be able to launch this type of smartphone payments option to their Ghanaian customers.

Mobile payments is a market that is taking off at an explosive rate in Africa, as it provides the ability to bring services to people who were previously completely unbanked.