Global payments services company MasterCard plans to invest $700-800 million in India between now and 2020, a top official has said.

These investments will flow into processing, mobile technology and solutions and data analytics, said Porush Singh, Country Head for MasterCard in India.

Some investments will also go towards royalty for technology as a whole and not related to MasterCard, Singh told BusinessLine here on Tuesday.

The planned investments of about $800 million are double the $400 million that MasterCard had invested in India since 2014.

“We are pretty confident of the Indian market, which is why we are looking to make this level of investment (in the next few years). Tomorrow, if there is too much inflation, too much bureaucracy and ease of doing business gets affected, our plans may change. As of now, we are confident and so upfront we are talking about investment plans,” he said.

E-payments

Singh said less than 5 per cent of India is on electronic payments. “India uses four times cash than countries like Brazil, South Africa and Mexico. The only way you (India) can go is up. You cannot go worse than this. The future is clear. There is a big opportunity (for electronic payments) in India and more technology is going to come,” he added.

He felt that card usage (not just for ATM passage) can go up through higher acceptance. “We believe the right way to build acceptance is through smaller merchants, which is why we are partnering with CAIT,” he said.

Earlier, speaking at an event on digital payments, organised by the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT), Singh said MasterCard had in the last two years helped 20 crore people in 55 countries come into the financial system. “We want to make this 50 crore by 2020,” he added.

Today, 13 per cent of MasterCard’s global workforce sits in India, Singh said, adding that the company would look to align with the government on new initiative, such as smart cities and other mobility plans.

He added that India could save ₹500 crore each year were it to increase the share of digital payments by 5 per cent.

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