Mastercard and Handpoint, an in-person payments platform provider, have signed a partnership agreement to promote greater acceptance of card payments by thousands of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, Italy, Slovakia and the UK.

The partnership promotes the use of Handpoint’s powerful and secure payment platform that is both brandable and customisable for Merchant Service Providers (MSPs), helping small businesses who are missing essential technology to accept card payments for their businesses. This is also an intuitive payment solution that can expand its features to support businesses as they grow and require more advanced options.

The partnership offers a suite of tools that can be adapted based on businesses’ needs including:

• mPOS: Brandable, intuitive payment app which enables businesses to securely accept card and contactless payments through affordable and portable card readers, whilst easily managing key metrics from their transaction history
• smartPOS: All-in-one, smart payment terminal that is the epitome of excellent customer interaction and seamless checkout experience
• softPOS: The Handpoint platform is built to support the future evolution to a payment software solution without terminal hardware requirements.

In line with the recent surge in contactless payments – which now accounts for 75% of all Mastercard transactions in Europe – all payment devices within this partnership are contactless enabled.

Handpoint’s Terminal Management System includes an informative Merchant Portal empowering business with digital technology to take control of their payment management. This tool makes it easier to keep a record of transactions, particularly in countries where business owners are required to report all transactions to government authorities. This is particularly useful for entrepreneurs who will be able to allocate more resources to their core business rather than back office functions.  

Jason Lane, EVP Market Development, Europe at Mastercard, notes: “SMEs are both a vibrant and vital part of the European economy. Many of these small businesses who work only with cash have been disproportionately impacted in recent months by the health crisis. Be it contactless, online payments or mobile payments, at Mastercard we want to empower small businesses to accept more payment methods, to generate more sales and support their economic recovery.”

David Gudjonsson, CEO at Handpoint, comments: “Handpoint is proud to partner with Mastercard and bring new, smart payment solutions to establishing merchants across Europe. Payments that offer choice, flexibility and business intelligence have never been more important, for merchants who are adapting to card payments with mPOS through to growing merchants who can benefit from smartPOS with unified payments across channels and integrated POS software.”