CHENNAI: FSS (Financial Software and Systems) on Thursday launched EmBark, an ‘Acquiring Platform as a Service’ offering for Acquiring Banks and Payment Aggregators to facilitate digital inclusion of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME), with cost-efficient payment acceptance tools to expand addressable market, engage with customers in new ways and thrive in the digital economy.
The processor and payment technology company said MSMEs form the backbone of the economy, contributing 35% to the country’s GDP and yet, the segment remains underpenetrated and an approximate 95% MSME operate in a cash economy, which was what prompted the setting up of EmBark.
“Medium and small businesses are on the frontlines of the Indian economy. With EmBark our objective is to align with the governments of India’s vision to bring MSMEs into the digital payment fold, a crucial step for building an atma-nirbhar India. We want banks and other ecosystem players to collaborate with us in this journey and create a true network effect that would encourage adoption of digital payments and spur local entrepreneurialism and commercial activity,” K Srinivasan, Global Chief Revenue Officer at FSS said.
EmBark, a multi-faceted payment acceptance platform, orchestrates interconnections between crucial ecosystem players – banks, processors, merchant acquiring institutions and MSMEs — to address this opportunity and create exponential value. With EmBark, acquiring banks gain access to an underpenetrated MSME market via strategic partnerships, without having “feet on the street”, transforming the economics of MSME acquiring, the management of the company explained.
“This alleviates acquisition and servicing costs and brings efficiencies into a high-volume, low-value business. Payment Aggregators benefit as they do not have to tie-up with each bank individually. EmBark provides a single-entry point that reduces the time and effort spent on complex integrations, enabling them to focus on core business activities,” they said in a statement on Thursday.
The company added that the platform would have robust risk management and fraud detection capabilities to improve authorization rates while also having unified reporting and built-in analytic tools for insights into business performance. It said this would aid an improved access to reliable easy to access payment services infrastructure, improve adoption among MSME and promote business growth. Further, it said digital transactions leave an auditable trail that can be leveraged to gain access to institutional credit for further business expansion.
“The digital wave is reinventing the MSME marketplace. EmBark offers industry players a real opportunity to profitably tap into the underserved MSME segment by adopting ecosystem models to create a ubiquitous payment acceptance network and achieve service differentiation on the strength of innovative products and superior business models,” Sandeep Gomes, Global Business Head Acquiring at FSS said.
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