Keeping small merchants in focus and bring digital payment for kiranas, MasterCard, Axis Bank and Worldline on Thursday launched payments platform —soft point of sale (POS) — which will enable Kirana stores to do away with traditional POS and accept payments from customers with an application on their mobile phones.

The solution allows merchants to accept payments through various digital form factors including Bharat QR, sending payment links to customers and even accept NFC-based payments to boost contactless payments in the country.

The service will also offer features including E-Khata for reconciliations and recording store credit transactions, a cash register to record transactions at the store and an Online Dukkan, where merchants can catalog their products for consumers to make online orders for home deliveries.

This platform comes at a time when Mukesh Ambani-led JioMart has planned an easier payment system for Kirana stores after an investment of `43,574 crores from Facebook. Sanjeev Moghe, head-cards & payments, Axis Bank, said, “We have been continuously working on partnership-led models & digital solutions for the merchant community, to help them lower their cost of business.”

The solution addresses the needs of small businesses, especially during these challenging times of Covid-19, the joint release from MasterCard, Axis Bank and Worldline said. Vikas Saraogi, vice-president, head of acceptance, South Asia, Mastercard, “Given the current pandemic, an option of accepting cashless payments and the speed of transactions are paramount for small merchants across the country.”

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.Mastercard has also partnered with Zoho Corp to help merchants with large turnovers file their goods and services tax returns, among other services.

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.Mastercard, which is providing white-label technology for this solution, aims to equip 10 million small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in India by 2021 through various banking partnerships. Additionally, it plans to take this solution to other South Asian markets including Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal over the next year, through partnerships.

At present, Mastercard has partnered with Axis Bank to acquire merchants. With this, the private lender plans to launch the Qube application on Google Play Store by July.

Soft POS will also support the Tap on Phone function, which means a cardholder can tap their contactless card on the merchant smartphone with NFC to make a contactless digital payment.

xis Bank plans to spread the network of this solution to 15%-20% of its offline store distribution of its newly acquired merchants across the country, at present, and

Moghe added that this solution is expected to bring down operating costs of accepting digital payments via a physical POS machine, which can cost upwards of ₹5,000 for installation.

The app-based solution also allows banks to have complete visibility of a merchant’s transactions, making it easier for small merchants to get business loans. The app is available in eight languages and easily links with platforms such as Google Pay, WhatsApp Pay, Amazon Pay, among others.