Gentari announces a new partnership with Mastercard to explore various opportunities within the EV space in Asia Pacific. At the same time, Gentari is looking to leverage Mastercard’s digital payment expertise.
The announcement also highlights that Mastercard has worked on a universal payment-terminal solution for EV chargers in Europe to meet EU regulations. This seems to hint at the possibility of Gentari adopting payment terminals for its EV chargers although today’s announcement did not provide any specific details.
Why EV chargers in Malaysia should have payment terminals
Among the main complaints that we heard from many parties regardless of EV owners, EV-curious, and EV haters is you need to download so many EV charging apps to make sure that your EV has access to as many chargers in Malaysia.
As more consumers begin to switch to EVs, there will be more types of users as well. Some of them might not be tech-savvy and may not be able to navigate their way through a charging app.
Payment terminals are being seen as one of the solutions to address this issue. One can simply tap their card to pay for charging fees instead of going through the motions of setting up a user account and payment details inside an app.
In Malaysia, the integration of payment terminals and EV chargers was pioneered by DC Handal. Since then, many Charge Point Operators (CPOs) in Malaysia such as EVlution, EV Power, JusEV, ChargEV, and Shell Recharge have begun using card payment terminals for their EV chargers too.
Gentari x Mastercard partnership is not just about payments though
Circling back to the Gentari and Mastercard partnership, the joint statement also hinted that the new cooperation will not stop at just payment-related matters. Specifically, they will also “jointly explore advertising, marketing, and other promotions,”.
If we have to guess, perhaps Mastercard holders could enjoy special benefits at Gentari chargers sometime in the near future. As mentioned earlier, today’s announcement is quite light on details but we will keep you posted once we hear more from Gentari and Mastercard.
