SmartPesa’s Mastercard Start Path Journey, the year in review
Singapore – SmartPesa joined Mastercard Start Path, an award-winning startup engagement program for later-stage scaling startups in May 2020. This kickstarted a year of transformation for the company, amidst major disruptions in the market.
With the COVID-19 pandemic, SmartPesa’s proprietary SoftPOS technology was thrown into the limelight as contactless payments became necessary to minimize transmission. A pioneer in SoftPOS since 2018, SmartPesa went on to collaborate with Mastercard for their Tap on Phone rollouts in India, Middle East and South Africa with global partners such as Axis Bank, Hello Group, Mashreq Bank, Nedbank and Worldline.
In an effort to ensure the highest level of security for partners and end users, the SmartPesa team worked hard to navigate the requirements of global compliance standards and underwent rigorous testing to achieve PCI certifications for CPoC and DSS Level 1. Together with PIN-on-Glass certified by Mastercard and Visa, SmartPesa’s SoftPOS solution became fully compliant to accept contactless payments of any amount without the need for expensive hardware or complex onboarding processes.
As the icing on the cake, SmartPesa was privileged to become one of a select few globally that are Visa Ready Certified for their Tap to Phone solutions.
“2020 was a pivotal year for many, likewise for the team at SmartPesa. Starting with the induction into the Mastercard Start Path program, our company went through an incredible journey that saw the achievement of major milestones which we are deeply proud of and which humbled us at the same time,” says Barry Levett, Executive Chairman, SmartPesa.
Looking ahead, SmartPesa strives to continue driving change in merchant payment acceptance through SoftPOS, its range of POS hardware and an intelligent payment gateway. Streamlining and simplifying payments for businesses, both large and small, is core to their mission to drive financial inclusion; and empower businesses to fulfil their dreams.
