PoS units can't be dumb any more, says Mswipe founder Manish Patel

Phones have become 'smartphones', and TVs have become 'smart TVs'. Everything is becoming smarter, but we mostly have dumb terminals at merchant outlets, says Patel

Mswipe Technologies is rewiring merchant-customer interface by changing the game. The country’s largest deployer of point-of-sale (PoS) machines, with 630,000-plus units, has raised $95 million over the last three years. Manish Patel, founder and chief executive officer, spoke to Raghu Mohan. Edited excerpts:

On the impact of zero merchant discount rate (MDR)

It applies to online payments and large entities with a turnover above Rs 50 crore per annum. Small and medium enterprises make up 85 per cent of our merchant base. Our strategy is like Netflix’s — merchants pay a flat, monthly subscription, and use whatever and how much