Mastercard to tap growing Indian e-commerce market

Identifying India as one of the fastest growing e-commerce nations Mastercard has said it will expand its investment by over 30 per cent in tune with Indian government's "digital India" initiative.
"India is one of the top priorities in the region. We have increased our investments in India by over 30 per cent in the last two years and we are going to increase it even more," Sam Ahmed, Mastercard's senior vice-president of marketing for Asia Pacific, told PTI here.
Ahmed indicated that Mastercard's, one of the world's largest financial transaction firms, investment plans were in line with the Indian government's "digital India" initiative and would help Indian consumers in digital payments in their daily lives.

He said the company was looking at a number of digital payment innovations which were to be launched in India in future, including face recognition, Masterpass and other online payment methods.
He said mobile penetration in India was the highest and termed it as the key to get the users' access to such digital payment innovations.
Commenting on the flow of investments in India, Ahmed said the company was keen to support the digitisation move to help consumers understand about it.

The investments will also be channelised towards the digital and e-commerce engine giving consumers what they need. We are planning to do this by partnering with small businesses and merchants and outbound travellers, he said.

The company is eyeing to tap movie launches and sponsoring local sports as a part of its marketing campaigns.
"Movies are such a passion in India. The area we are looking at is movie launches," Ahmed said.
Currently, the company has veteran Bollywood actor Anil Kapoor and his daughter Sonam Kapoor as its Brand ambassadors.