At the 2013 Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, Spain, on Tuesday, Plastic card payment firm MasterCard unveiled the mobile point of sale (MPOS) technology, which has already been rolled out in Kenya in cooperation with Equity Bank.

About the MasterCard MPOS solution, Daniel Monehin - MasterCard's Sub-Saharan Africa division president - said that the technology will enable the Kenyan retailers, who have earlier been operating largely on cash-only basis, to benefit from mobile handsets as point-of-sale (POS) terminals and accept electronic payments.

The introduction of the MPOS technology will apparently facilitate the smaller traders in accepting cashless payments through the mobile handsets; thereby doing away with the need to lay expensive Internet infrastructure in remote regions.

Commenting on the recent unveiling of MasterCard's MPOS technology, Ezetap CEO Abhijit Bose said that even though the technology "has the potential to transform payments in emerging markets," Ezetap's experience in other markets has revealed that the technology is "only half the battle."

Hinting at the pre-requisites for the MPOS technology to be "fully successful," Bose said the companies looking to launch the technology should ensure that they have "a strong set of partners, who truly understand the needs and concerns of the local merchants and consumers."