FSS (Financial Software and Systems), a globally leading provider of payment products and a payment processor and Airpay, a leading omnichannel financial services platform, announced a strategic collaboration to accelerate electronic payments acceptance by micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs).
The alliance is a part of the company’s global strategy to bring banks and payment aggregators onto FSS Embark its omnichannel acquirer platform – to build an inclusive digital payment services ecosystem that efficiently caters to the MSME segment.
Access to cost-efficient digital payments is a fundamental need for businesses today. MSMEs, however, remain underserved due to the diverse and fragmented nature of the market segment as well as low profitability in relation to the costs of acquiring and servicing these merchants.
Under the umbrella of this partnership, FSS and Airpay bring complementary strengths to improve MSME access to digital services. Airpay would be responsible for the first-mile enablement for acquiring, onboarding, technology enablement, and providing ongoing support to MSMEs whilst FSS would be responsible for last-mile single-window transaction processing.
Speaking on the alliance, Krishnan Srinivasan, Global Chief Revenue Officer, FSS said, The COVID-19 pandemic has made digital the new normal and the ability to participate in digital commerce is crucial for MSME survival and growth.
We are excited to partner with Airpay for FSS Embark to bring reliable digital payment services to MSMEs. The collaboration helps us gain immediate access to an extensive MSME network and we would benefit from Airpay’s strong technology tools and merchant support network on the field, enabling us to rapidly scale our footprint.
Speaking on the partnership, Kunal Jhunjhunwala CEO, Airpay, said: MSMEs are at the heart of India’s economy, and are the hardest hit by the pandemic, as they lack, technology and tools that will help them sell in the digital marketplace.
Our partnership with FSS helps make the entire transaction processing more reliable and efficient. It would enable us to expand services to a large base of merchants by offering them a range of innovative digital payment acceptance services online, instore, and mobile to participate and compete in a digital-first economy.
MSMEs represent 90 percent of businesses in India and play a crucial role in India’s economy contributing 30 percent to the county’s total GDP and employing approximately 28 percent of the country’s workforce.
A B2B omnichannel acquiring service, FSS Embark partners with banks and merchant aggregators and helps them leverage its reliable, and scalable technology platform to transform the economics of servicing MSMEs.
Financial Software and Systems (FSS) is a leader in payments technology and transaction processing. The company offers an integrated portfolio of software products, hosted payment services, and software solutions built over 27+ years of experience.
FSS, end-to-end payments products suite, powers retail delivery channels including ATM, POS, Internet, and Mobile as well as critical back-end functions including cards management, reconciliation, settlement, merchant management, and device monitoring.
Headquartered in Chennai, India, FSS services leading global banks, financial institutions, processors, central regulators and governments across North America, UK, Europe, ME, Africa, and APAC and has 2,500 experts on-board.
Airpay is a leading financial services platform that enables payments and the larger financial ecosystem of the merchant. Airpay has developed a suite of best-in-class payment processing solutions focusing on multiple payment instruments including both payer present and payer-not-present transactions across a variety of sales channels.
These solutions enable Airpay to be the single point of contact for a merchants’ payment processing and financial services need, helping them increase revenue, manage their business, and collect payments using traditional as well as new-age methods.
Airpay’s platform gives merchants the ability to seamlessly manage the end-to-end (customer, merchant, and financial institution) processes leading to consumer delight using simple, secure, and efficient technology tools.
