The Taiwan-based payment company Castles, specializing in payment tools, has started a semi knocked-down production line in Iran’s Arvand Free Trade Zone, in cooperation with Bank Pasargad’s subsidiary, FANAP.
FANAP is launching the POS terminal production line in Khorramshahr Free trade Zone, Khuzestan Province. Jason Chiang, sales manager of Castles in the Middles East, said the high demand in Iranian market has prompted the company to expand its presence in the country.
“The Iranian market offers many opportunities, especially now that sanctions are lifted and foreigners have more opportunities to take part in the market,” he said. “Our Iranian partner, FANAP, is producing the POS terminal and we provide them with technical and technological assistance.”
According to a FANAP official, the production is set to increase gradually and that a CKD production will be the next target for the two companies. Complete knocked-down helps assemble a product from scratch while an incompletely disassembled kit is known as semi knocked-down. According to Chiang, Castles is planning to be among the top three players in payment tools industry.
“Iran is among our top three customers across the world,” he said. “Our plans for expanding operation in Iran market are in line with our goal.” However, the sales manager noted that the company has no plans for exporting the goods manufactured in Iran.
Chiang announced that his company might soon provide new tools like mobile point of sale (mPOS) to the Iranian market.
“We predict that Iranians will soon start demanding new payment technologies," he said. mPOS is a use of technology familiar to merchants and consumers to create a flexible payments mechanism. The technology represents an exciting opportunity to streamline payments, refine the way merchants operate and improve customer services.
FANAP unveiled the first assembled POS terminal in late May and plans to assemble 200,000 POS terminals in cooperation with Taiwan’s Castles and in line with PCI standards.
