State Bank of India launched its Multi Option Payment Acceptance Device, ‘MOPAD’, which will allow customers to make payments through cards, Bharat QR, UPI and SBI Buddy (e-wallet) on a single Point–of–Sale (PoS) terminal. The initiative is aimed at providing convenience to merchants by eliminating the multiple machines that they keep in order to facilitate transaction from different sources, a release from the lender said.

The bank also said that customers would receive a charge-slip as a proof of payment after processing any type of transactions through MOPAD. “This is not available for traditional Bharat QR / UPI / SBI Buddy transactions. The merchants get single MIS for all types of digital transactions, helping them to have total control on the cash flows. It is expected that this multipurpose initiative will enhance the digital ecosystem and help the bank in driving the economy towards a less-cash society,” the statement said.

As per the statement, the new initiative will roll-out on all SBI PoS terminals in a phased manner. The lender, which is India’s largest bank, is also the largest PoS provider in the country with 6.14 lakh terminals as of April, according to data released by the Reserve Bank of India.

PoS in India

According to data from the central bank, the number of point–of–sale (POS) machines increased to 3.16 million in April 2018, up 21% from 2.61 million in April last year. However, the RBI data only shows terminal statistics from banks and does not include the number of devices from third-party players like MSwipe, Ezetap, ItzCash and Oxigen.

Note that in June 2014, the State Bank of India had partnered with Ezetap to deploy 500,000 PoS terminals across the country over the next five years. Subsequently in October 2014, Ezetap and SBI partnered to launch ‘Chota ATM’, a solution that could double as an ATM device as well as a PoS terminal that accepts payments from any debit or credit card.

Competition

The public sector lender’s service will be competing with its banking rival HDFC’s DigiPOS.  Last year, the private sector bank launched DigiPOS which allows customers to pay via UPI, BharatQR, SMS Pay and the PayZapp wallet, in addition to debit and credit cards. The bank, at the time, also said that it will be converting its entire network of PoS machines to DigiPOS without any investment by the merchants.

It will also be competing with EzeSmart, which is Aadhaar Pay enabled and has an eKYC (Know Your Customer) authentication option as well. EzeSmart also supports other payment modes such as UPI and Bharat QR, besides mobile wallets, and credit and debit cards. Further competition includes, PoS terminal provider, Paynear, which had rolled out an Aadhaar Pay pilot in Hyderabad in June last year. The pilot began with 50 merchants in the city, and the company’s CEO Priti Shah had told MediaNama that there were still a number of interconnection issues which needed to be fixed before they could roll it out on a bigger scale. It will also compete with Mswipe, which, as of December last year, had 280,000 terminals across 650 cities and towns. The company’s scale had been augmented by its’s acquisition of PayU India’s PoS business in May 2017. MSwipe also supports BharatQR and UPI, but not Aadhaar Pay.