Mastercard has invested in Indian merchant commerce platform Pine Labs, as part of a collaborative effort to capitalise on growing demand for buy-now, pay-later installment financing in Asia.
New Delhi-based Pine Labs provides merchants with cloud-based POS software that lets them accept cards, as well as QR-code-based payments and other unified payments interface (UPI)-based offerings. Today, it processes payments of US$30 billion per year and serves some 140,000 merchants across about 450,000 network points.
The firm, which scooped a $125 million investment from PayPal and Temasek last year, is experiencing growing demand among its banking client base for the design and delivery of on-demand credit services to merchants and consumers.
A study published in May 2019 by PwC and the Associated Chambers of Commerce of India showed that the market opportunity in India for installment-based payments on consumer goods will hit US$16.9 billion in 2021 and is expected to jump to US$52.5 billion in 2025.
Ari Sarker, co-president for Asia Pacific at Mastercard, says: “Smart devices are transforming how people shop. With this partnership, we’re continuing to build innovative solutions and provide people with new ways to pay right at their fingertips.”
The size of the investment was not disclosed, although it is thought to put a valuation on the company of in excess of $1 billion.