DUBAI — Following on from its meteoric success in India and Southeast Asia, Pine Labs, a leading provider of retail payment solutions, is set to introduce its one of its kind in the world, virtualized payment platform in the MENA region.

Worldwide customers are adapting to newer and innovative modes to make digital payments; hence the payment acceptance solution needs to be agile, customer engaging, and highly secure. Pine Labs’ payment software in the SAAS model, empowers its partners to enable their merchants to meet these challenges by offering future ready payment solutions on their existing physical POS machines as well as on the eCom space.

Pine Labs’ technologically advanced platform brings differentiated value for financial institutions, banks, merchants and brands to create a superior payment acceptance experience for their customers and create value with each transaction while adhering to the highest global security standards — PCI DSS, PA DSS, Visa & PCI PIN Security Certifications.

Pine Labs solutions with enable its partner banks to offer services, which are not seen in the market before. Pine Labs’ robust platform offers cost efficiencies and incremental revenue opportunities for banks, merchants and brands with best-in-class payment innovations and suite of value added services that convert the “Point of sale (POS)” to “Point to Acquire & Engage customers” like Instant EMI, Instant Discounts, Cashback Programs, PaybyPoints, Loyalty Solutions, eWallet, Targeted Promotions and Dynamic Currency Conversion.

“We are very excited about the response we are getting from the MENA region,” said Kush Mehra, president APAC & MENA for Pine Labs. “There are many industry-firsts that we will be bringing in to the region that will create value in each transaction for all our partners and their consumers. We have a long-term commitment and will be investing in the state-of-the-art payment infrastructure in the region.”

Owing to the government initiatives like eDirham, RTA nol micropayment programs from UAE, SADAD from KSA, etc., the through put volume of the card transactions at POS are very high in the region. The existing retail payment solutions in the market facilitates no differentiated edge to the acquirers. The costs are high and there is no real time VAS for revenue generation.

There is a big vacuum in the market hence leading banks across the MENA region have expressed strong interest in the platform and select partnership agreements will be announced soon.

Pine Labs’ commitment to the market is demonstrated by establishment of a dedicated office in Dubai and appointment of industry stalwart Simanta Das to lead the development and expansion. More offices are planned in the region in the near future. — SG