MCB is the third largest acquiring bank of Pakistan and has been operating in Debit/Credit cards acceptance business domain since 2008. In line with State Bank of Pakistan’s vision 2020 of expanding the digital acceptance footprint, MCB entered into the e-commerce business landscape in 2014 and deployed MasterCard’s Internet Gateway System (MIGS) for acceptance of all e-commerce payments.
With several challenges for digitization of payments, MCB envisioned that forming strategic partnerships across different industries will help to form the payment ecosystem and thus fast expand the digital acceptance footprint. In year 2015, MCB became the first acquiring bank of Pakistan to introduce the unique Payment Facilitator business model in Pakistan. This Payment Facilitator model provides every market player an opportunity to create synergies and capitalize on each other’s core strengths.
What is ‘Payment Facilitator’ Model?
The model brings a positive impact on the businesses of all the stakeholders of Payment Processing Value Chain.
Payment Facilitator Model is an approved merchant aggregation business model for both card present and card not present environments, and helps to increase the card acceptance footprint. In the said model, an acquiring bank appoints another entity as a Payment Facilitator to perform on its behalf, onboard the merchants and receive the settlement proceeds on behalf of the merchants from the acquiring bank.
MCB’s contributions towards an Enabling Payment Ecosystem
Payment Facilitator of MCB is an industry first initiative and following this business model, MCB has partnered with the two of Pakistan’s largest telecom operators and branchless banking entities of Pakistan namely Easypay & JazzCash.
By taking this unique, innovative and industry first initiative, MCB has created an ecosystem of its kind in Pakistan that focuses purely on the growth of the local e-commerce industry. To cater transnational needs of e-commerce merchants, MCB’s Payment facilitator offers operational capacity of laying down a robust digital tunnel while capitalizing on the distribution power and deeper market penetration of local telcos & branchless banking entities.
How the Payment Facilitator arrangement functions?
Under the Payment Facilitator (PF) model, MCB extends its E-commerce Payment Gateway (MIGS) to its PF business partners with end-to-end support in merchant onboarding, website integration, transactions monitoring, customer experience management, complaint redressal/customer protection and merchant awareness programs. The bank also equips its PF partners with the knowledge of KYC/CDD regimes, risk mitigations frameworks and control enhancements. The bank also helps its partners in understanding overall frameworks of Payment Scheme Regulations, various VISA/MasterCard compliance programs and industry best practices.
MCB’s Achievements
MCB’s PF business arrangement has helped in scaling up the local e-commerce industry within a very short span of time. MCB together with its payment partners is generating a massive transactional throughput. The two largest online market places of Pakistan namely Daraz.pk and Yayvo.com along with other 350+ merchants are connected to the PF ecosystem of MCB Bank.
MCB was also the driving force behind online Black Friday sale of 2015 & 2016 as well as Google’s GOSF (Great Online Shopping Festival) of 2016.
Way Forward
The Payment facilitator business model can help leverage the trust that a financial consumer places with the banks. By creating more such collaborations it will help in expanding the payment ecosystem and managing the shift from expensive Cash on Delivery arrangements to digital transactions.
