Mastercard promotes cashless transactions
24 April 2022
Mastercard has teamed with Pine Labs to provide Filipino credit cardholders with the option of paying in monthly installments at no interest.
The Philippines is the first of five Southeast Asian regions to offer the Mastercard Installments with Pine Labs program, which aims to fulfill the growing need for more flexible payment choices among consumers promotes cashless transactions.
“By leveraging Mastercard and Pine Labs’ expertise, we can quickly integrate and scale our installment services.” Having a single point of entry into an installment network also makes it much easier to reach out to more businesses. Security Bank senior vice president and retail banking head Maki Tingson said, “This value proposition is matched with our mission to provide customer-centric solutions and BetterBanking experiences.”
Aside from Security Bank, Asia United Bank, China Bank, state-run Land Bank of the Philippines, Ty-led Metropolitan Bank & Trust Co, Philippine National Bank of tobacco and airline magnate Lucio Tan, and Yuchengco-led Rizal Commercial Banking Corp are six other Philippine banks whose cardholders will be enrolled in the program.
The service is available at over 20 merchant sites, including Mandaue Foam, iSwitch, Autohub, and CYA stores (exclusive distributor of quality home appliance brands like Ariston, Fabriano, Indesit, Mabe, Blueair and others).
The Mastercard Installments with Pine Labs service is not tied to any one payment network. As long as their issuing bank is engaged, consumers can pay in interest-free monthly installments with any credit card at establishments that display the Pay Later identity. Consumers will be able to pay in installments with their debit cards and even straight from their bank accounts via their mobile banking app in the future.
This payment plan aids the Philippines’ efforts to become a cash-lite, and eventually cashless transactions, society. Furthermore, it gives consumers more financial flexibility by allowing them to divide major purchases into interest-free monthly installments.
Pine Labs is a premier merchant commerce platform supporting prominent large, mid-sized, and small retailers across India and Southeast Asia, while Mastercard is a worldwide payments technology company.
The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’ Digital Payments Transformation Roadmap seeks to move 50% of total retail transactions to electronic channels by 2023, as well as boost the number of Filipino adults to 70%.
