Mastercard to invest $1 billion to develop India as global tech node

Global card payments major Mastercard, on Monday, said it will invest $1 billion in India over the next five years, with plans to make the country a global technology node for its platforms.

The company has already invested $1 billion in the Indian market in the last five years.

“Over the last five years, we invested about $1 billion in India. Given our increasing confidence in the Indian economy, where it is likely to be over the coming decade, we are stepping up on our investment commitment in India. We are committing another $1 billion into India (for the next five years),” said Ari Sarker, co-president, Asia-Pacific, Mastercard.

The most crucial thing about this investment is that Mastercard is building India as a global technology node for its global platforms, he said.

This investment will help foster innovation and increase Mastercard’s speed-to-market capabilities and value-added services.

“What we mean by that is as a payments network we are a global network. All our transactions traverse towards a global network where the technology centres are in the US. And now India is going to become the first country outside of the US which will have a global technology node,” he said.

Building the India technology node will mean that the company’s processing services, authentication services, tokenisation services, and all other service layers that ride around the card payment industry will have an India presence.

Of the $1 billion investment, $300 million will be used to develop the India technology node. The rest of the investment will go towards existing services and expanding capacity among others, said Sarker.