MAM
Mastercard advocates contactless payments
MUMBAI: Mastercard’s commitment towards making transactions more convenient, safe and seamless through tap-and-go card payments has taken on new urgency and importance as the spread of COVID-19 highlights the imperative for “contact-free” environments and experiences as much as possible.
As nations implement stricter containment measures to keep their citizens protected, Mastercard has taken a leadership role by actively consulting with governments and industry partners across the Asia Pacific region to ensure consumers have sufficiently high limits for contactless payments.
Having the right transaction limit helps people stock up on more essential items on each trip to public places without having to touch potentially infectious surfaces, key in a PIN, handle cash or use a pen to process their payments. It is also important for merchants and consumers to know that signatures are no longer required for card payments, which further reduces contact points and speeds up purchases.
Consumers simply need to look for the contactless symbol on the front or back of their cards to see if they can tap when they are checking out with their purchases. For mobile devices, any change in limits has no impact on transactions or personal safety as a fingerprint, facial scan or PIN keyed into the device itself is still required and contact points are confined to the cardholder’s device.
“Face-to-face transactions still need to happen, even in times as unusual as now. Making them as fast and contactless as possible is one way to help people to be more socially responsible, support local businesses and protect everyone in the community when they need it the most,” said Mastercard Asia Pacific executive vice president products and innovation Sandeep Malhotra.
“Mastercard fully supports social distancing, remote working, stay-at-home measures and other efforts to contain COVID-19 and is actively working with partners and customers in every market to bring the industry together and find mutual ways to help, be it through contributing insights and consultative advice or driving more consumer education and awareness building.”
As of February 2020, contactless payments made up approximately 50 per cent of Mastercard’s global card-present purchases, excluding the United States.
The Asia Pacific is seeing an overall rapid expansion in contactless payments but adoption varies across the region – from widespread use in Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong, New Zealand and Malaysia to swift uptake in India and steady growth from a low base in China, Japan, Indonesia and Vietnam. Transaction limits also vary across the region as each market has the autonomy to set its own limits based on what is right for the domestic environment and for cardholders.
Some markets including Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan already have sufficiently high limits. Australia and New Zealand have raised their limits, effective 9 April, and the Philippines will increase its limit on 17 July. Still, other markets are at a more exploratory stage in their deliberations and Mastercard stands ready to support them as initial discussions build momentum for action.
The momentum across Asia Pacific reflects efforts globally to expand the use of contactless payments. In Europe, Mastercard continues to advocate for consumers and merchants alongside industry partners as 29 countries recently raised contactless limits, either permanently or temporarily. In Canada, Mastercard enabled a higher limit in early April.
Limits are being raised in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Mauritius as Mastercard champions efforts for increases across the Middle East and Africa and works with industry partners in Latin America and the Caribbean to enable increases.
Extensive support around the world
Beyond ongoing efforts related to ensuring the safety and security of payments, Mastercard is also taking many other steps to support customers, merchants and consumers during this time of need.
To help communities at the local level, Mastercard is working with customers to bring smaller shops online and increase digital payments acceptance to support their businesses. Mastercard’s Center for Inclusive Growth is tapping into its network of thought leaders to assess the impact on some of the most affected groups, including small businesses, low-skilled workers and financially vulnerable households.
To speed the development and scaling of treatments for COVID-19, a partnership by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Wellcome Trust and Mastercard has committed up to $125 million in funding.
Employees have also donated time, money and medical supplies to communities around the world as part of Mastercard’s commitment to doing well by doing good.
AD Agencies
Abhay Duggal joins JioStar as director of Hindi GEC ad sales
The streaming giant brings in a seasoned revenue hand as the battle for Hindi television advertising heats up
MUMBAI: Abhay Duggal has a new desk, and JioStar has a new weapon. The media and entertainment veteran has joined JioStar as director of entertainment ad sales for Hindi general entertainment channels, adding 17 years of hard-won revenue experience to one of India’s most powerful broadcasting operations.
Duggal is no stranger to big portfolios or bruising markets. Before joining JioStar, he spent a brief stint at Republic World as deputy general manager and north regional head for ad sales. Before that, he put in three years at Enterr10 Television, where he ran the north region for Dangal TV and Dangal 2, two of India’s leading free-to-air Hindi channels. The north alone accounted for more than 50 per cent of total channel revenue on his watch, a number that tends to get attention in any sales meeting.
His longest stint was at Zee Entertainment Enterprises, where he spent over six years rising to associate director of sales. There he commanded the Hindi movies cluster across seven channels, owned more than half of north India’s revenue across flagship properties including Zee TV and &TV, and closed marquee sponsorships across the Indian Premier League, Zee Rishtey Awards and Dance India Dance. He also handled monetisation for the English movies and entertainment cluster and the global news channel WION, a portfolio that would stretch most sales teams twice his size.
Earlier in his career Duggal closed what was then a Rs 3 crore single deal at Reliance Broadcast Network, one of the largest in Indian radio at the time, before that he helped launch and monetise JAINHITS, India’s first HITS-based cable and satellite platform.
His edge, by his own account, lies in marrying data and instinct: translating audience trends, inventory signals and client demands into long-term partnerships built on cost-per-rating-point discipline rather than short-term deal chasing. In a media landscape being reshaped by streaming, fragmented attention and AI-driven advertising, that kind of rigour is increasingly rare and increasingly valuable.
JioStar, which blends the scale of Reliance’s Jio platform with the content firepower of Star, is doubling down on its advertising business at precisely the moment the Hindi GEC market is getting more competitive. Bringing in someone who has spent nearly two decades doing exactly this, across some of India’s most watched channels, is a pointed statement of intent. Duggal has spent his career turning audiences into revenue. JioStar is clearly betting he can do it again, and bigger.
