Mswipe raises Series D funding of USD 31 million

Mswipe Technologies Private Ltd., an independent POS merchant acquirer and network provider on Wednesday announced the procurement of Series D funding of USD 31 million from UC-RNT fund, a joint venture between Ratan Tata's RNT Associates and the University of California along with existing investors Matrix Partners India, Falcon Edge Capital and DSG Consumer Partners.

The company will use the funds to develop the largest network of merchants accepting digital payments in the country.

"With merchants of all sizes actively looking to enable digital payment acceptance at their establishments, we expect to grow exponentially going ahead, create card and electronic payment acceptance infrastructure across cities and widen our user base," said Manish Patel, Founder and CEO, Mswipe.

 

Mswipe currently has a payment network of 2,46,000 terminals spread across over 550 cities. As much as 80 percent of Mswipe's customer base comprises of SME merchants, typically supported by 1-30 employees.

The turnover of these outlets is in the range of Rs one to five lakhs a month and most of these merchants can accept credit and debit card payments for the first time through Mswipe.

The annualised value of total transactions enabled by Mswipe across its network stands at Rs 9,560 crores. Last year alone, the transaction value on the Mswipe network grew four times while the number of installations grew three times.

The company recently acquired PayU's offline POS division, partnered with Samsung Pay, Sodexo and launched BharatQR and UPI acceptance for Mswipe's merchants.

"Mswipe is the 'universal acceptance' solution for all merchants enabling them to accept any payment instrument - cards, wallets, UPI, NFC etc. In a rapidly changing payments landscape, Mswipe's open technology platform and ability to deliver solutions at the lowest cost sets them apart. We are privileged to partner with Manish and team on their journey to create India's largest digital acceptance network," said Vikram Vaidyanathan, Managing Director, Matrix India.

Despite the numerous cashless channels today, POS terminals are still the largest and most widely used cashless instruments available in the country. The number of transactions through POS terminals stood at 233.4 million in May 2017, valued at Rs 450.8 billion, according to the Reserve Bank of India.

Compared to that, digital wallets accounted for 91.3 million transactions and total value of Rs 25.3 billion. That is a difference of almost 2.5 times in terms of number of transactions and 18 times in terms of value of transactions.

"Merchants across the board are now looking to streamline and automate processes. At Mswipe, we are working towards developing the next generation Android based smart POS terminals that will offer merchants capabilities like GST compliant billing and inventory management with integrated and seamless payment acceptance, on the same device. Merchants can further develop customized Android applications and easily integrate Mswipe's payment platform with such apps using these smart POS terminals," added Manish.