Card payments will be accepted at more than 500 restaurants, retail outlets and hotels in Myanmar by the end of the year, following the announcement of a rollout of Point-of-Sale (POS) terminals by Co-operative Bank Ltd (CB Bank) and MasterCard Worldwide after its first POS transaction at Golden Myanmar Airlines, Myanmar’s first public, budget airline.
The nationwide rollout will see POS credit card acceptance in hotels and retail outlets in Yangon, followed by the cities of Nay Pyi Taw, Mandalay and Bagan towards the second quarter of 2013.
POS acceptance will enable merchants in Myanmar to accept MasterCard payment cards, giving them access to electronic commerce and the ability to participate in the open, global payments system that MasterCard enables. These merchants will also benefit from being part of a network of thousands of issuing and acquiring financial institutions and their partners. CB Bank staff will also be organizing training sessions for front-line staff on how to use the terminals.
Mr. Antonio Corro, country manager & chief representative, Indochina, MasterCard Worldwide, said the rollout of POS acceptance would benefit the growth seen in both the retail and tourism sectors. Visitors to Myanmar boomed in 2012, with more than a million people travelling to the country compared with around 816,000 in 2011, according to Myanmar’s Ministry of Hotels and Tourism.
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