Touch and go: Highspring helps a tech giant introduce a contactless payment system in an emerging market

The challenge

A multinational tech company wanted to increase the adoption of its digital payment platform in India, but it had a serious problem: Merchants weren’t offering it to their customers. Competition in the digital payment platform space was tough, and the systems were interoperable, so from the merchant perspective, there was no reason to change. The company needed help showing businesses what the platform could do and why it was valuable. It tapped Highspring as part of that effort. 

By 2027, we can expect contactless payment transactions at $10 trillion globally from $4.6 trillion in 2022.

Source: Juniper Research

The solution

To help its new partner, Highspring launched a field team across the country. It recruited, trained, and deployed talent from offices stocked with materials and a custom virtual training module, which was designed to get that talent in front of merchants—fast.  

When the COVID-19 pandemic emerged, getting the field team into cities became much more difficult due to the spread of illness. But Highspring pivoted, shifting their efforts from densely populated cities to rural markets and local businesses, selling them on contactless payments.  

As the team in the field interacted with merchants, it learned that a competing product was gaining market share.  The team communicated to higher-ups what was happening, and Highspring came up with a plan. It recommended an update that included a soundport to make the product more competitive, and it developed a supply chain solution to reduce loss of the new devices during delivery. 

Our impact

Highspring put 3,000 operators into the field, helping 8.5 million merchants adopt the company’s digital payment platform. They also developed an app for field agents so they could maintain relationships with business owners over the course of 5 million visits. 

Through those interactions, the team in the field gained customer insight that led to a product update. Highspring then developed a supply chain management solution for delivery of the new devices that reduced losses from an initial forecast of 32% to a leakage rate of just 4%.