In-store payment transactions are in a race to become faster and more convenient. While most shoppers reach for their plastic and swipe or insert at a POS terminal, contactless is a rising force. Card companies, including Chase, Capital One, and American Express, are cranking out contactless cards for consumers.
Meanwhile the mobile phone pay players, Samsung, Google, and Apple continue to try to boost adoption from their users. So now Samsung is teaming with First Data (a unit of Fiserv) and Visa to enable merchants to use their existing Samsung mobile devices as an NFC (Near Field Communication) contactless payment terminal.
Most small to medium merchants are already using devices from Clover, Square, and others to take contactless payments. The Samsung trio have a payment acceptance method that is cost effective for merchants and convenient for consumers. But given the current installed base of other competing NFC devices, it may be awhile before First Data, Visa, and Samsung begin to see any significant market share.
A MobilePaymentsToday article, excerpted below, covers the topic further:
Fiserv Inc. unit First Data said it plans to introduce its SoftPOS technology — developed with Visa and Samsung Electronics — that allows smartphones and tablets to accept contactless payments without the addition of new hardware, according to a press release.
The SoftPOS will allow merchants to accept payments on the devices using near-field communication-enabled technology embedded inside wearables, smartphones, key fobs or other devices.
First Data said it will launch the SoftPOS system at the IFA 2019 conference, the largest technology show in Europe, and later launch a pilot program in Poland before expanding the product for sale in the EMEA and Asia-Pacific markets.
“As contactless payments grow in popularity it is important that merchants are able to enable these payments on mobile devices,” John Gibbons, executive vice president and head of EMEA at Fiserv, said in the press release. “SoftPOS has been designed to meet the current and future needs of consumers and entrepreneurs and will change the way people make daily payments, facilitating the convenient, quick and secure processing of contactless payments.”
Overview by Raymond Pucci, Director, Merchant Services at Mercator Advisory Group