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Citibank India and MasterCard announced the launch of Citi MasterPass, the first global digital wallet in India, making Citibank debit and credit card customers the first in the country to be able to shop at more than 250,000 e-commerce merchants, located in India and worldwide.
“Over the last two years, we have seen an increase of over 76% in e-commerce
Citibank India and MasterCard launch Citi MasterPass
transactions by our customers. These customers are constantly looking for simple, quick and secure experiences while shopping online. Citi MasterPass significantly reduces the checkout time across thousands of e-commerce merchants ensuring this would be the payment solution of choice for consumers in India,” comments Kartik Kaushik, Head of Consumer Banking, Citibank India.
MasterPass is present across 24 countries worldwide and is available to over 40 million consumers in Asia-Pacific alone. India is the first market in Asia Pacific where Citibank card customers will be offered the co-branded MasterPass solution. Today, around 41% of all Citibank card transactions in India are performed online, underlining the growing importance of global wallet solutions such as Citi MasterPass.
Speaking at the occasion Vikas Varma, Executive Director, South Asia, MasterCard said, “As Indian consumers embrace a more digital lifestyle, Citi MasterPass will enable efficient, secure and quick checkout experiences for shoppers.
We believe Citi MasterPass is a significant step forward in the evolution of electronic payments. Beyond a platform that hosts digital wallets, Citi MasterPass will also provide the technology for merchants to offer new and innovative services, and unique features for shoppers.”
Not only does Citi MasterPass optimize the checkout experience, it is also expected to contribute to expanding e-commerce sales in the country, by reducing the cart abandonment rate with its simple, yet secure payment process.
Spurring E-commerce and Online Sales
Citi MasterPass will be available at over 100 online merchants in the country, with more to come in the future. India’s e-commerce industry is expected to cross 1.08 trillion rupees ($17.2 billion) at the end of 2015.
Online shopping in India has grown dramatically in the last two years. Around 86.8% of Indian consumers indicate that secure payment facilities are critical when shopping online and 47.5% cite the perceived lack of safe payment options as the top reason not to shop online. Online purchases via mobile phones in India have grown by more than 100% over the past two years.
Around $6 billion has been invested into India’s internet sector over the past two years, with $871.5 billion coming in the first quarter of the calendar year alone. India currently has around 260 million internet users – 92% of whom are wirelessly connected and 20% of whom are use mobile broadband services, such as 3G. Almost all of new internet users are leapfrogging and going directly to mobile. As a result, mobile already forms 40-60% of the traffic/transactions for most companies (and can go as high as 70%).
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