Cash-on-delivery is old hat. So what’s new? Swipe-on-delivery.

Banks make card-swipe payments mobile

Cash-on-delivery is old hat. So what’s new? Swipe-on-delivery. More banks are tying up with payment system providers to tap the doorstep delivery market. On Thursday, Yes Bank launched a mobile point-of-sale (POS) payment mechanism. A small device connected to a GPRS-enabled mobile phone of the delivery person will help its customers to make payments by simply swiping their debit or credit card on doorstep delivery. “About 60-70% of the sales in the `9,300 crore e-commerce industry happen through the cash-on-delivery option,” said Chitra Pandeya, senior president of savings liabilities management, cards and direct banking at Yes Bank. “The idea is to not only take a part of the cash-on-delivery market, but also expand the pie.” Yes Bank is looking at insurance companies, restaurants chains and large corporates that offer home delivery or payment collection at home/office. The bank said mobile POS will reduce the high cost of the cash-on-delivery option and also make the system more transparent. Yes Bank’s move follows Axis Bank’s tie-up with Prizm Payments and Mswipe Technologies several months back to roll out Swipeon, a mobile phone-based card acceptance service. “It is disruptive in a way — it takes card acceptance to locations which were difficult to reach because of telecom connectivity issues or because of high cost of POS devices,” said Loney Antony, MD of Prizm Payments. Paymate, a mobile payments company, also launched an application called PayPOS that can be downloaded on the mobile phone along with the launch of a similar mobile POS device in May this year. Paymate, however, is more focused on attracting small businesses and community-run businesses. “India has many mom-and-pop businesses. We are looking at a huge segment of people who are outside the scope of electronic transactions because they are largely transacting in cash,” said Ajay Adiseshann, MD of Paymate. “This (swipe-on-doorstep option) helps the small businesses compete against the big guys, empowering them by giving them a payment option.”