Ven­dors op­er­at­ing at the Car­ni­val Cen­tre can now ac­cept dig­i­tal pay­ments fol­low­ing the roll­out of a point-of-sale dis­tri­b­u­tion ini­tia­tive by the Na­tion­al Pay­ment and In­no­va­tion Com­pa­ny of Trinidad and To­ba­go in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion.

The ini­tia­tive al­lows ven­dors to ac­cept deb­it and cred­it card pay­ments along­side cash, sup­port­ing faster trans­ac­tions and re­duc­ing the risks linked to cash han­dling, par­tic­u­lar­ly dur­ing peak Car­ni­val pe­ri­ods.

So far, 30 point-of-sale ter­mi­nals have been dis­trib­uted to ven­dors at the venue.

It was con­firmed via a press re­lease by NPICTT that the roll­out forms part of the com­pa­ny’s wider man­date to ex­pand ac­cess to na­tion­al dig­i­tal pay­ment in­fra­struc­ture across pub­lic-fac­ing ac­tiv­i­ties and events.

By ex­tend­ing elec­tron­ic pay­ment ac­cep­tance to small ven­dors, the ini­tia­tive sup­ports broad­er par­tic­i­pa­tion in the dig­i­tal econ­o­my and en­sures mi­cro and small busi­ness­es can keep pace with chang­ing pay­ment pref­er­ences.

Act­ing Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Kennedy Swarats­ingh hands a point-of-sale de­vice to ven­dor Car­leen Grant of C Treats at the Fla­va Food Vil­lage in the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah. Al­so present were TSTT CEO Keino Cox and NPICTT chair­man Nigel Fulchan.