Sellers’ use of AUB Mastercard reduces card-terminal costs for MSMEs

Sellers or merchants using AUB PayMate need not invest in costly point-of-sale or card terminals to accept Mastercard payments from their customers. Asia United Bank (AUB) in the Philippines has enabled its AUB Paymate merchants to accept Mastercard payments using a QR Code. The bank’s all-in-one digital payment acceptance product enables all types of merchants to accept from digital payments from local or foreign e-wallets, bank payments, to cards.

This expanded digital capability also allows merchants, especially micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) to do away with costly card terminals. “There are a lot of merchants that are not able to accept Mastercard payments because of the high cost of card terminals. In addition, merchants are usually required to meet a certain monthly transaction volume processed on the card terminal. If they don’t meet this quota, merchants can either lease or lease to own the terminal. This is the reason a lot of MSME merchants only accept cash payments,” added AUB first vice president and cards & acquiring business group head Mags Surtida.

“AUB PayMate can now support different types of payment transactions, including card payments,” said Wilfredo Rodriguez Jr., AUB executive vice president for IT and Operations.

With AUB’s Mastercard, customers can simply use their smartphone camera to scan the Card QR code displayed on the AUB PayMate merchants’ stores. They will be directed to a secure AUB PayMate checkout site and receive an OTP to complete and secure the transaction. Merchants can then view the payment status in real time using the AUB PayMate app or portal.

“AUB PayMate merchants have been trained to accept QR payments since we started in 2017 as a e-wallet/QR payments acquirer. We want them to have the same digital payment acceptance journey by providing them a Card QR code to accept Mastercard payments,” said Surtida. “We want to provide a solution by innovating on the card acceptance process.”