MasterPass Coming to India amid E-Commerce Boom (July 30, 2015)
MasterCard and Citibank India are teaming up to bring the payment network’s MasterPass digital wallet to India. The launch will enable Citibank debit and credit card customers to shop at more than 250,000 e-commerce merchants in India and worldwide with just a few clicks. MasterPass securely stores customers’ card and shipping information, meaning a shopper only has to click a special “Buy with MasterPass” button at checkout to complete the purchase. The one-click solution reduces the likelihood of customers abandoning purchases mid-checkout due to the cumbersome process of entering information manually—especially important for mobile shoppers, MasterCard noted. With the India launch, MasterPass now is available in 24 countries.
India is the first market in Asia-Pacific where Citibank will offer its customers access to MasterPass, according to the bank, which recently has experienced a boom in e-commerce in the country. Online transactions in India are up 76 percent over the past two years, the bank said, and 41 percent of all Citbank card transactions in the country are performed online. Overall, MasterCard projects India’s e-commerce sector will be worth $17.2 billion by the end of 2015. The growing popularity of e-commerce could be a boon for the Indian government’s ongoing attempt to move the country’s economy away from its deeply rooted reliance on cash. Mobile could prove to be an especially fertile channel, with “almost all” new Internet users in India passing over computers and going directly to mobile, MasterCard said. As a result, mobile already accounts for 40 to 60 percent of the traffic for most India-based retailers.
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