Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), the global IT services, consulting and business solutions arm of Tata Group has launched 'Merchant Pay', a unified transaction solution that will help retail organizations seamlessly integrate payments across multiple payment channels such as Aadhaar, credit or debit card or even phone-based payments through a single interface.

For the consumer, Merchant Pay is hoped to be a seamless experience enabled by TCS as they will be able to transact at a Merchant Pay-enabled store merely by using their fingerprint to confirm their identity.

Ravi Viswanathan, president for growth markets at TCS said, "We are proud to innovate for India's digital transformation. TCS worked with the government to pioneer a simple payment acceptance using Aadhaar. With numerous digital payment methods like UPI, eWallets, Aadhaar Pay, debit and credit cards available, there was a need for a unified platform that integrates all digital payment methods offering convenience to customers and also allowing merchants to accept any form of digital payment."

The Merchant Pay platform will effectively integrate with various banks to provide multiple-mode payment options to suit one's own business model and provide a unified view of all payments. Additionally, it will also serve as a business analytics platform for strategic business decision-making to reduce cost of payment. It will facilitate advanced analytical data by offering analytical reports based on transaction pattern analysis.

Security being a key aspect of any payment gateway, Merchant Pay will have empanelled and controlled devices security features. Merchants will be uniquely tagged on their smartphone or last-mile devices with device policies being embedded in the application.

The Merchant Pay Services Platform offered by TCS as an extension of Merchant Pay will help in addressing critical business needs of merchants. These include services for acquiring, on-boarding and training merchants, cloud hosting services, 24x7 network support as well as multi-lingual help desk support. The Services Platform will also ensure compliance to existing risk management frameworks and help merchants meet regulatory and statutory needs.

To ensure seamless adaption of this cloud hosting solution, TCS will conduct special drives to on-board and train merchants and have a 24x7 professional support setup for merchants.