Mastercard joins hands with Razorpay for digital payments in India

With vast untapped market potential in developing countries for digital payments, global card networks are building local partnerships in order to establish their hold and market share.

In the latest move, Mastercard had entered into a strategic partnership with Bangalore-based startup Razorpay that would join Razorpay’s payment processing capabilities with Mastercard’s digital banking solutions and card services.

The partnership between the two would enable Indian SMEs to “digitizing their operations, maintaining business continuity in the challenging environment and preparing for the future beyond cash”.

Last year, Mastercard partnered with EnKash to expand B2B payments in India.

“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,” said Amitabh Tewary, Chief Innovation Officer, Razorpay.

With this partnership, the two will push digital payments adoption in tier 2 and 3 cities and according to the press release, before the pandemic, around 90% of India’s retail payments were done in cash and due to push towards digitization of payments, the partnership would be able to cater to SMEs.

Over the years, Razorpay has raised $206.5 million through A, B, C, D round of fundings and Mastercard is also one of the investors in the firm.