PayU’s Plans to Grow and Merge; India’s Zero MDR Gets Pushback: News Roundup

PaymentFacilitator’s News Roundup is a curated mix of the past week’s news and articles from around the web, including company announcements, global payments news, and other coverage and analysis of topics relevant to payment facilitators.

Big Brands Getting Bigger

PayU plans to grow credit business with PaySense acquisition. In an effort to help PayU expand more deeply into offering credit, the payments platform has acquired a controlling stake in Indian startup PaySense and plans to merge it with its own credit product, LazyPay. PaySense targets long-term credit financing, such as vehicles and other larger-ticket items, while LazyPay concentrates on short-term credit for lower-ticket items such as food delivery platforms and ecommerce sites. From TechCrunch.

MDR Misgivings

Could zero MDR have an adverse impact on India’s ecosystem? This opinion piece lays out challenges that include a loss of incentive for banks to invest in digital infrastructure as they no longer receive income on digital transactions, disincentives for UPI that threaten customer privacy and the competitive issues surrounding a government backing one privately owned company over another. From Medianama.

Indian government denies bank requests for MDR compensation. Commercial banks have responded unfavorably to the Indian government’s recent push towards cashless with a plea for compensation on the zero MDR policy. Effective January 1, banks are no longer receiving income on RuPay and UPI transactions at qualifying merchant locations. A request was made for annual compensation in the amount of ~$22 million to account for the loss in revenue but the government denied this proposal. From Financial Express.

Powerful Partnerships

Vend and Klarna partner on behalf of boutique retailers. Targeting merchants in both the UK and the US, this partnership enables small business boutique merchants to compete with enterprise retailers by offering more flexible payment options such as buy-now-pay-later options and QR-based payments technology. The rollout initiated in the UK and will make its way to the US later in 2020. From Retail Times.

Industry News

Visa: Visa to Acquire Plaid

Boom: Payments Powerhouse Secures Senior Capital and Rebrands as Boom Commerce with Focus on Integrated Payments and Strategic Acquisition

RealPage: RealPage Reports a Surge in Scheduled Apartment Completions in 2020, with Occupancy and Rent Growth Likely to Cool Slightly

Paysafe: Paysafe Expands Omni-Channel Offering with Launch of Cloud EMV capabilities 

Mobeewave: Mobeewave and Elavon Partner to Revolutionize Merchant Registration and Card Payment Acceptance in Canada