DFCC Bank partners with Visa for micro merchant transactions

Handing over the agreement by Visa Country Manager Sri Lanka and Maldives Anthony Watson (second from left) to DFCC Bank CEO Lakshman Silva (third from left). Also present are Visa Worldwide Director MS & A Sri Lanka and Maldives Nalin Dissanayake (left), DFCC Bank Vice President/Head of Cards Denver Lewis (second from right) and DFCC Bank Manager – Merchant Acquiring Chrishan Jayamanne (right) 

DFCC Bank, with the aim of being the most customer-centric and digitally-enabled bank in the years to come, recently partnered with Visa to facilitate digitally driven, cost-effective transactions at micro merchant businesses and increase card acceptance among micro merchants in Sri Lanka. 

This partnership will further strengthen the transaction processing capability for merchants of DFCC Bank with its low transaction costs, while enabling their ability to shift from cash to accepting card payments.

With the Sri Lanka Micro Merchant Program, an initiative by Visa, the bank can process transactions for merchants at a lower cost. The high merchant discount rates offered to this segment have been the main challenge in getting such merchants to accept card-based transactions. With this initiative, the bank intends to bring the small merchant community into the sphere of digital transformation.

Commenting on this partnership, DFCC Bank CEO Lakshman Silva said, “We are delighted to be a part of this program as it is another initiative that the bank has introduced to go cashless, and more so with a segment that uses physical cash to conduct their day to day business transactions.  We believe that this is a good challenge as we need to invest a substantial amount of time and effort that is required to educate them on current payment acceptance trends, introduce them to new technology and open up new opportunities, thereby increasing their sales by exposing them to new market segments. More so, the reduced transaction cost will certainly help these businesses to become more profitable, and the bank will be empowering micro merchants to improve their businesses by having access to digital payment acceptance solutions in order to make this market segment more competitive through the use of digital tools.” Visa Country Manager, Sri Lanka and Maldives Anthony Watson said: “In the wake of the pandemic, there has been an urgent need to support micro and small businesses, something that Visa has committed to, globally. In line with this commitment, we are delighted that DFCC Bank is now a part of our Micro Merchant Program for Sri Lanka. We look forward to helping them enable digital payments for small businesses through Point of Sale (POS) and QR-based payments, in a cost-effective and secure way.”

DFCC Bank is setting new standards in the market by providing android-based POS machines that are NFC enabled. Customers can complete a transaction by digitally signing on the screen, tapping to pay, or use a chip-based card, all secure methods of paying. They can also conveniently have goods delivered to their homes as the transaction can also be completed at the customer’s doorstep via these mobile POS machines. The cash flow of the merchants will also be enhanced as the transactions processed on these machines are settled to the merchant on the very next day. DFCC Bank also offers DFCC Pay Merchant app facilitating LankaQR and VisaQR payment acceptance to Merchants through mhe use of a mobile phone.