From left: HNB Aggregator Solutions Executive Krishan Jayamanna, HNB Product Head Merchant Services and Digital Pay Products Gayan Gunawardane, HNB Head of Acquiring and Digital Payment Solutions Zacky Ahamed and HNB Head of Cards Gauthami Niranjan at WEBXPAY and Visa partnership launch together with WEBXPAY Founder and CEO Omar Sahib, Head of Cybersource India and South Asia Rahul Choube, Visa Country Manager Sri Lanka and the Maldives Avanthi Colombage, Visa Director Products Sri Lanka and the Maldives Gimali Soysa, Visa Director MS & A Sri Lanka and the Maldives Nalin Dissanayake, WEBXPAY Director Business Development and Operations Krishan Samarasinghe and WEBXPAY Project Manager Natalie Ferdinands

Sri Lanka’s leading online payment gateway solution provider WEBXPAY announced a landmark partnership with the nation’s leading private sector bank HNB to introduce affordable point of sale (POS) solutions to enable digital payments acceptance for small and medium businesses (SMB). 

As part of the ongoing Visa Acceptance Fast Track programme that WEBXPAY entered recently, the partnership will enable WEBXPAY to increase the circulation of POS terminals to SMBs. At present, it is estimated that 96,000 POS terminals are in circulation. 

Through its ongoing efforts, WEBXPAY aims to increase circulation of POS devices rapidly over the next five years, with Soft POS terminals such as Tap to Phone and other Android POS machines expected to play a pivotal role in expanding cashless payment acceptance to SMBs. 

“WEBXPAY is proud to partner with a true pioneer in tech-enabled banking – HNB – in order to rapidly expand access to the latest generation of contactless payments to support the growth and development of Sri Lankan SMBs. Based on global experiences we have seen that contactless payments can increase their transactions by 4x and encourage 2x higher spend. This can help them attract and retain new business at a very crucial time for the SMB sector,” said WEBXPAY Founder and CEO Omar Sahib.

In addition to low-cost POS machines, new solutions like Tap to Phone payments are expected to prove a game changer for SMBs, enabling vendors to almost instantly convert any smartphone into a payment acceptance device. 

“Sri Lanka’s SMB sector serves as a backbone of our nation’s economy, accounting for the vast majority of employment in Sri Lanka and yet they often lack the resources, tools and expertise to engage with digital payment solutions. HNB, WEBXPAY and Visa are all united by a deep commitment to leveraging the power of technology and partnerships to radically enhance the competitiveness of SMBs and we look forward to working in close collaboration to rollout contactless payments and novel a solution like Tap to Phone (Soft POS), to SMBs across the island in the coming months,” said HNB PLC Head of Cards Gauthami Niranjan.

Visa has long been committed to power the digitisation of small businesses in Sri Lanka. As part of the Acceptance Fast Track programme, we are delighted to enable this partnership between WEBXPAY and HNB and further empower the SMB sector with digital payments. “Through our Cybersource platform, we will help enable card present acceptance as well as provide merchants with the convenience of tap to phone,” said Visa Country Manager Sri Lanka and the Maldives Avanthi Colombage.