Payments Firms MYPINPAD and SmartPesa Plan to Merge

Mobile payments company MYPINPAD will merge with payments and banking solutions provider SmartPesa, the companies said in a news release Tuesday (April 19).

“Customers will benefit from greater scale, a wider product offering and the certainty of continued support as the industry moves towards the PCI Security Standards Council’s forthcoming Mobile Payments on COTS (MPoC) Standard,” the release said.

According to the council, the goal of the standard is to “create a flexible mobile standard and program for payment solution development, allowing for both PIN entry and contactless payments through the COTS-native interfaces.”

Read more: PCI Issues New Requirements For Tap-And-Go Payments

The companies say the merger establishes MYPINPAD as a global leader in mobile payments acceptance and allows the combined entity — which will operate under the MYPINPAD brand — to double its footprint around the world.

Based in the Welsh city of Cardiff, MYPINPAD provides secure payments acceptance and personal authentication using smartphones and tablets. The company says its technology secures and protects the input of sensitive information on touchscreens, removing the need for specialized hardware.

SmartPesa, headquartered in Singapore, develops payments and agency banking solutions for banks and merchants, providing a tool that offers acceptance of smart multi-channel payments and instant access to transaction histories, as well as automated reconciliations.

Learn more: How All-in-One Platforms Can Lower the Cost of SMB Payments

PYMNTS examined the benefits of all-in-one payments acceptance tools last week in a conversation with a group of industry experts, who noted that many companies, small and medium-sized businesses especially, remain unaware of what this model can do for them. Part of the problem is the firmly entrenched mindsets within B2B payments.

In other words, as Plastiq Chief Operating Officer Stoyan Kenderov said, the way it’s been handled for so long will be the way in which it always will be done.

“If all we have is a horse,” said Kenderov, “it’s hard to imagine the benefits of the car.”