Mastercard Partners With Handpoint On SMB Payments Platform

Mastercard said it has inked a deal with Cambridge, U.K.-based Handpoint that will help bring “essential technology” for making sales via cards — along with contactless options — to small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) in a number of European countries.

In a press release, Mastercard said the partnership will promote products offered by Handpoint, a payments platform provider, to SMBs in  Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Italy, Slovakia and the U.K.

During the COVID-19 crisis, many SMBs “who work only with cash have been disproportionately impacted,” said Jason Lane, executive vice president for European market development at Mastercard. He said the company wants to help SMBs “generate more sales and support their economic recovery” — whether that be via credit cards online or mobile payments.

The Handpoint website says the company helps its customers “deliver the ultimate checkout experience with SmartPOS,” the tech company’s term for its point-of-sale (POS) products.

The company can help SMBs “who are adapting to card payments” along with others who are growing and can use POS products that offer “unified payments across channels,” said David Gudjonsson, CEO at Handpoint.

The release said, “In line with the recent surge in contactless payments — which now accounts for 75 percent of all Mastercard transactions in Europe — all payment devices within this partnership are contactless enabled.”

The partnership will offer an “intuitive payment app” that allows SMBs to “securely accept card and contactless payments through affordable and portable card readers,” along with a “smartPOS” that is described as an “all-in-one, smart payment terminal.”

In addition, a “softPOS” offering will allow the Handpoint platform “to support the future evolution to a payment software solution without terminal hardware requirements.”

The release said the Handpoint setup offers an easy way “to keep a record of transactions, particularly in countries where business owners are required to report all transactions to government authorities.”

Amid the pandemic’s economic crisis, Mastercard announced in April that it had committed $250 million over the next five years to support SMBs, a press release said at the time.