Mastercard’s Masterpass now claims to be the most widely accepted digital wallet in South Africa after concluding a deal to allow consumers to use its wallet at the more than 30 000 SnapScan merchants in South Africa.
Mastercard and SnapScan, the mobile payments solution backed by Standard Bank, announced the partnership on Thursday in Cape Town.
Consumers can download the Masterpass app from their app store, register and load their credit, debit or cheque cards from any bank into the digital wallet. To pay, Masterpass users then scan a QR code, or SnapCode, displayed at point of sale or online, then enter the payment amount into their Masterpass app and confirm the transaction with their ATM Pin code or a one-time Pin code sent to their mobile phones.
Each Masterpass transaction is classified as an “authenticated mobile transaction” by South African banks, ensuring protection from fraudsters.
Since its launch in 2013, SnapScan has grown its acceptance, especially among small businesses that did not have access to traditional point-of-sale devices and relied on cash payments.
“Interoperability between digital payments platforms is one of the keys to driving digital payments usage and acceptance in South Africa,” said Lincoln Mali, head of group card and payments at Standard Bank.
The integration of Masterpass with SnapScan offers benefits for the entire payments ecosystem of consumers, banks and merchants, Mali said.
For the banks who already have Masterpass apps, they will now be able to offer expanded acceptance via SnapScan to their customers, while merchants can reach more consumers currently using Masterpass without additional development work. — (c) 2016 NewsCentral Media