Mastercard launches Pay Local, allowing card linkage with e-wallets at over 35 million points of sale, helping travelers and local residents transact more conveniently.
On November 5, Mastercard officially launched the Pay Local service in the Asia-Pacific region, creating a bridge between international credit/debit cards and local e-wallets. This move allows travelers and local residents to conduct transactions more conveniently and securely at over 35 million points of sale in the region.
The Pay Local service is integrated with several leading e-wallets, including DANA (Indonesia), Touch ‘n Go (Malaysia), Bakong (Cambodia), and LankaPay (Sri Lanka). This collaboration expands Mastercard's payment network, which already includes major partners such as Alipay, Weixin Pay, Octopus, Maya, ShopBack, TrueMoney, and GrabPay.
Choosing the Asia-Pacific region as the starting point demonstrates Mastercard's recognition of the strong growth potential of the mobile payment market in this area. This service is also expected to be launched in Latin America, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, regions with a significant rate of e-wallet usage for daily transactions.
The benefits that Pay Local brings are not limited to consumers. For travelers, linking a Mastercard with local e-wallets helps eliminate payment barriers when traveling abroad.
Local residents also benefit as they can transact with micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) that often do not accept traditional cards. For MSME businesses, Pay Local helps expand customer reach without requiring significant investment in infrastructure. E-wallet operators and card-issuing banks also benefit from the expanded customer base and points of card acceptance.
In the context of contactless payments becoming increasingly popular, Mastercard reported that 70% of all personal transactions on its network are contactless. Pay Local is expected to contribute to this trend while reinforcing Mastercard's position in the global payment market.
