Here’s how digital payments are rapidly changing the fintech space

The Fintech industry has taken great strides forward in driving cashless and digital payments around the world. Today, pretty much anywhere you are, from a village square to a big city, money flows through taps, swipes and clicks on your cards, apps and devices. Almost everyone on the planet has a digital wallet for daily transactions.

With e-commerce booming, consumers and businesses are looking for the fastest, easiest and most secure ways to pay. To keep up with how people spend money, Mashreq Bank recently launched NeoPay, a payment technology business that aims to simplify payments for goods and services.

“The launch of NeoPay is a strategic move that will contribute to the growth of Mashreq’s payments business, enabling us to strengthen our leadership role in the rapidly evolving payments space,” said Kartik Taneja, Executive Vice President, Head of Payments & Consumer Lending at Mashreq , which is headquartered in Dubai.

In the UAE and other countries, the wholly-owned subsidiary helps push fintech innovation forward.

Revolutionizing digital payments now

As one of the UAE’s largest banks, Mashreq handles around US$22 billion in annual payment volume. The launch of NeoPay marks a move to merge and consolidate their existing merchant operations into a single platform. It comes at a time when digital payments are at an all-time high with more than 70% of individuals in the Middle East and North Africa willing to pay by credit card or mobile apps, according to recent statistics.

Extending a digital-first vision

The bank has embraced digital-first services as the way forward. As the fintech arm of the bank, NeoPay provides seamless payments for merchants and consumers using advanced technology for lightning-fast card processing and merchant acquisition systems, as well as switch and point-of-sale processing. For everyday shoppers, that means more convenient ways to pay the bill at a restaurant, pay back a friend, or buy some cute wireless speakers.

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Increasing “buy now, pay later” convenience

On the flip side, NeoPay allows companies to partner with a bank that already has a large customer base and is investing heavily in fintech locally and globally. The bank recently invested $10 million in a fintech company called Cashew, which is growing the “buy now, pay later” market in the UAE and Saudi Arabia through an app and an online platform. Cashew will also expand to Egypt soon.

Makes it easier to set up a tab with a friend or a restaurant

To reach more globally, Mashreq also invested in Touché, a fintech company based in Singapore that is transforming the hospitality industry with Oracle-approved solutions. Restaurants, bars and hotels can use a single certified device to connect to the infrastructure and payment system. It has several modules for full service and quick service businesses, including Order@Table, Pay@Table, Benefit@Table, RoomChg@Table and Order&Pay, and runs on a fully integrated Android smart payment terminal.

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Improve virtual cards for businesses and elsewhere

Working with Visa, Mashreq helped develop a new digital reconciliation platform to track, trace and analyze company expense accounts in real time. For large businesses, the benefits of having virtual cards include having more insight and protection against fraud. On the other side, Mashreq also invested in NymCard, the only banking as a service (BaaS) provider in the Middle East right now. This open programming interface will enable businesses of all sizes to build payment card capabilities.

These are just some of the exciting ways Mashreq is catalyzing cutting-edge FinTech solutions that will improve digital customer service in the banking industry.

Mashreq is not associated with Mashable.