Card payment facility at your doorstep soon, courtesy MTS

Adding a new dimension to the retail industry and home delivery service, MTS is all set to introduce a new service 'Mobile as Point of Sale', allowing retailers to offer card payment facility at the customers' doorstep.

It will replace the conventional credit/debit card swipe machines with the MTS MTag 3.1 handset paired with the mPoS attachment.

The service is designed to suit the needs of retailers, home delivery-based service models like e-commerce players, food chains, pizza delivery outlets and companies into direct sales model like FMCG and insurance providers.

The vendor needs to download the mPoS application on the smartphone before the first time use. The transactions can be carried on by entering the transaction amount and details in the app, swiping the credit/debit card on the attachment and taking customer signature on the MTS smartphone screen.

Once the payment is processed, intimation is being sent to the card holder through email or SMS.

On the security front, MTS claims that the details of the credit/debit card are encrypted at the time of swipe and is transferred to the host servers using the data connectivity. Also, the data is not stored on the handset or the attachment.

The entire end-to-end solution is PCI Data Security Standards (PCIDSS) compliant.

At the moment, MTS is running a pilot with Flipkart.com and Yebhi.com. Expected to be priced between Rs 3,000 and Rs 4,000 for the MTS MTag 3.1 smartphone, mPoS attachment and One year data plan, the service will be soon launched at the national level.

This would also involve a monthly of Rs 200 - 300 for the mPoS usage.