Mahindra Comviva and ICICI Merchant Services win Global Telecoms Business Award

NEW DELHI, INDIA: Mahindra Comviva, the global leader in mobile financial solutions and ICICI Merchant Services, (ICICI MS) an alliance formed in 2009 between ICICI Bank - India's largest private sector bank, and First Data -the global leader in payment technology and services solutions, have won the Global Telecoms Business Award for Innovation in Consumer Services for mobile POS (MPOS).

The awards were announced at the eighth edition of Global Telecom Business Innovation Summit 2014, held in London recently.

ICICI MS and Mahindra Comviva launched MPOS to expand the digital payment acceptance network in India. The service allows merchants to accept payments anywhere by converting a smart mobile device (phone/ tablet) into a secure payment terminal. In addition to card payment processing, MPOS extends an enhanced suite of business-enablement services, including cash and cheque acceptance, EMI payments, reconciliation and analytics along with a delivery management system.

The MPOS offering caters to a wide variety of merchants ranging from micro, small and medium businesses to large enterprises; across diverse industry verticals (e-tail, travel, logistics and insurance etc). A key feature of the service is the flexibility to ‘empower the sales force of large enterprises by bringing-in mobility to their line of businesses and ‘basic payment acceptance to micro merchants'. Built-in Software Development Kit (SDK) capabilities accelerate the creation of custom applications to meet distinct requirements of specific verticals. Large merchants with existing payment applications also have an option to use payPLUS (MPOS) Application Programming Interface (APIs) to embed card acceptance functionality.

Srinivas Nidugondi, senior vice president and head of Mobile Financial Solutions, said: "The award validates our leadership position in the digital payments arena. In a fast-evolving digital economy, mobility is a critical business enabler. MPOS helps merchants to modernize their business by offering speed of deployment and flexibility to deliver tailored solutions."

 

Nitish Asthana, Executive Director, ICICI Merchant Services said "We are delighted at the recognition. India is one of the fastest growing digital payments economies in the world. The emergent changes in consumer payment behavior represent a sizeable opportunity for ICICI MS to expand its merchant acceptance network. A critical component of our strategy in India is to build our merchant portfolio by offering new channels of acceptance and customizable solutions designed for local merchant needs - example the ability to accept payments in equated monthly installments or support cash on delivery for e-tailers. Our collaboration with Mahindra Comviva enables us to rapidly expand India's digital payment acceptance infrastructure by extending innovative business solutions beyond basic transaction processing."

 

The MPOS solution equips businesses with an app and a card reader to accept secure card payments and harnesses the power of cloud technology to extend a range of compelling services to support evolving business requirements. It is fully EMV compliant as per global standards in the payments industry.

 

The GTB Innovation Awards are designed to honour innovative projects involving telecom operators and service providers around the world working in association with their vendors and suppliers. It is an essential feature of the GTB Innovation Awards that projects involve a partnership between operators and vendors.