Small Merchants, Digitization to Drive mPOS Growth: Report

Mobile Point of Sale (mPOS) terminals are going to see huge growth over the next several years, and a small chunk of them are going to be biometric, according to a new market forecast from Juniper Research.

The firm predicts that by 2023, almost one in four POS transactions will be on mobile POS devices. That will amount to over 87 billion transactions, compared to 28 billion anticipated for this year.

The growth will be driven by emerging markets, where mPOS technology represents a simple and cost-effective means of doing business for smaller merchants. And with its rapid, government-led digitization program, India will lead all other regions in this trend, with an annual growth rate of 46 percent over the next five years, Juniper Research predicts.

India will also be a leader in the adoption of biometric mPOS devices, thanks to its national biometric ID program, Aadhaar. Consumers will increasingly link their biometrics to their bank accounts, allowing them to pay with a fingerprint or other biometric scan, while merchants will get to evade the network charges associated with traditional payment cards. With Juniper Research predicting that such biometric mPOS devices will reach 2 million globally by 2023 – just four percent of the total mPOS terminals in use – that’s still small potatoes, but it does point to an upwards trend that could escalate beyond Juniper’s forecast period.