Mastercard has partnered with Axis Bank and payment service provider Worldline to launch a digital point-of-sale (POS) app for small merchants in India.

The new solution called Soft POS turns smartphones into POS terminals and complements the present need for contactless payments amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

Soft POS is powered by Bharat QR and Near-field communication (NFC) for ‘Tap on Phone’ payments as well as link-based remote payments for online orders.

To make purchases, cardholders can tap their contactless cards on the merchant’s NFC-enabled smartphone or pay remotely while ordering online via acquiring bank’s app.

Mastercard South Asia VP and head Vikas Saraogi: “Mastercard is delighted to partner with Axis Bank and Worldline in its journey to equip 10 million merchants with digital payments acceptance infrastructure by 2020-21.”

The Soft POS app features ‘E-Khata’ for recording credit transactions and payment ledgers, and an ‘Online Dukkan’ to create a catalogue of items available for home delivery.

The app also acts as a cash register for merchants to keep a record of all their expenses.

Mastercard and Worldline together developed the new solution and launched it with Axis as the first merchant acquiring bank.

Axis Bank is expected to will launch its Qube app in July and aims to deploy Soft POS across 15-20% of its offline stores of acquired merchants in India.

Axis Bank cards & payments head Sanjeev Moghe said: “Not only does this collaborative effort of Mastercard, Worldline and Axis Bank, open up a different channel for this community but also helps in penetrating the unexplored horizons of small ticket size merchants.”

Worldline South Asia and Middle East managing director Deepak Chandnani said: “Soft POS has been built keeping in mind the needs and business practices of merchants in India with functionalities like “Khaata” built-in.”