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MasterCard’s Investments In India To Hit $1 Billion By 2019 

MasterCard’s investments In India to hit $1 billion by 2019.

Mastercard Inc. credit cards are arranged for a photograph in Washington, D.C., U.S., (Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg)
Mastercard Inc. credit cards are arranged for a photograph in Washington, D.C., U.S., (Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg)

MasterCard’s investments to promote digital payments in India will cross $1 billion (about Rs 6,500 crore) in five years through 2019.

The investments have so far largely gone into two major acquisitions, new office space in Bengaluru and Gurugram, a MasterCard innovation lab and an operations hub in Pune, the company said in a statement today. Recently, it also opened a technology centre in Vadodara for developing tools and software for mobile technology and cyber security, it said.

The investments enabled the payments processing company to cut costs in automated teller machine withdrawals and debit card transactions of less than Rs 200, a price point that it said was vital because of the prevalence of transit and grocery purchases in that range.

While financial institutions and other processors retain 80 to 85 percent of fees in debit card transactions, the remainder comes to MasterCard as compensation for network services, Porush Singh, country corporate officer, India and division president, South Asia, said in the statement. That works out to roughly 12 to 15 paise for every Rs 100.

From 29 people in 2014 to nearly 2,000 now, the company now employs 14 percent of its workforce in India—making the nation its largest hub outside the U.S.