Mastercard and its partners move services to the cloud, democratizing access to payments technologies. Move unlocks opportunities for partners worldwide to enable contactless payments acceptance via a mobile phone.
Mastercard has partnered with NMI and Global Payments Inc. to launch its first live Cloud Tap on Phone pilot with Computer Engineering Group (CEG), a Napa, Calif.-based independent IT Services provider. „Cloud Tap on Phone is one of Mastercard’s innovative next generation acceptance products, with the software hosted on Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform,” according to the press release.
Mastercard has been spearheading the transition to contactless payments for years. In the third quarter of 2020, contactless penetration represented 41% of in-person purchase transactions globally, up from 37% in the second quarter and 30% a year ago.
With Tap on Phone, any business – regardless of size – can deliver new and best-in-class contactless consumer experiences using a device they already own: a smartphone. Tap on Phone democratizes point-of-sale technology by turning an Android smartphone or tablet into an acceptance device, allowing businesses to accept contactless payments minimizing the need to invest in hardware terminals or extra features.
Merchants can offer enhanced and accelerated curbside pick-up or payment on delivery, or provide faster line-skipping checkout in-store, options that are increasingly important as consumers look to touch-free cash alternatives.
With the introduction of Cloud Point of Sale (POS), Mastercard is enhancing its Tap on Phone product and empowering ecosystem partners to develop their own cloud-based products with new tools and capabilities. Cloud POS moves key parts of the acceptance software – the components (1) which enable the processing of contactless transactions and certain security functions – from the individual smartphone to the cloud, offering robust security, reducing development and maintenance costs, and creating scalable distribution channels by allowing immediate connectivity to partners. Cloud POS also becomes a new channel for Mastercard and our partners to bring value added services to customers and businesses.
„Mastercard will make its pre-certified Cloud POS software development kits (SDKs) openly available in multiple cloud environments, encouraging solution providers, fintechs, acquirers and processors to innovate and co-create new cloud-first products. Mastercard’s pilot with CEG represents the first live deployment of Mastercard Cloud Tap on Phone anywhere in the world,” the company said.
“We continue to see an accelerating shift to digital payments, with businesses of all sizes wanting to provide swift, secure, compelling point-of-sale experiences. Cloud POS enables us to make these experiences available to our partners with greater speed and efficiency,” said Milan Gauder, Global Head of Mastercard’s Acceptance Solutions Group. “Our partners are the center of everything we do, and our trusted technology powers innovative experiences, choice, flexibility and certainty, creating the products they need. Mastercard’s Cloud Tap on Phone delivers on our promise of ground-breaking products and innovation.”
Mastercard has convened an ecosystem of partners to launch Cloud Tap on Phone.
Leading payments enablement technology company NMI operates as a key integration partner and distributor.
Global Payments, a leading worldwide provider of payment technology and software solutions, will provide point of sale acceptance technology.
Continuing the company’s commitment to empower small businesses, CEG, an independent IT services company from California, serviced by an ISO BNG Payments, becomes the first company to pilot Mastercard’s Cloud Tap on Phone.
The company said that will conduct further Cloud Tap on Phone pilots and commercial deployments in other markets in 2021. Currently, Mastercard’s Tap on Phone solution is in 16 markets across Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, North America and Middle East & Africa. Pilots are taking place with partners in Costa Rica, Hong Kong, Poland, Kazakhstan, Romania, Canada, Belarus, Russia, Turkey, United Kingdom, among other countries.
„Tap on Phone technology perfectly complements the acceleration of contactless payments in the U.S. market. This is a ground-breaking step in creating a world that enables merchants to turn their smartphones into a payment acceptance device without the need of an externally paired physical card reader.” – Nick Starai, Chief Strategy Officer, NMI.
„We have been selling and supporting a wide range of mobile POS software and hardware solutions since the inception of mPOS. BNG Payments is constantly striving to increase our support excellence, and one way to do this is to find new and innovative ways to minimize hardware and software issues. With traditional solutions, we are relying on Bluetooth or audio jack connected credit card acceptance devices that are all prone to connectivity issues between the device and smartphone, causing merchants to have transaction issues and down time. With Cloud Tap on Phone, we are reducing potential failure points to just a smartphone and data connection as well as reducing upfront cost by eliminating the need for additional hardware. This will be the future of mobile card-present transactions, and I am happy to see that merchants and cardholders stand to gain the most from this innovation.” – Ryan Theis, Chief Strategy Officer, BNG Payments.
###
(1) An EMV Kernel is a set of interface routines, security and control functions, and logic defined in EMVCo Standard (www.emvco.com), to interact with a contact or contactless payment device, for instance a card or mobile, and retrieve the necessary data for the transaction authorization.
Banking 4.0 – „how was the experience for you”
„So many people are coming here to Bucharest, people that I see and interact on linkedin and now I get the change to meet them in person. It was like being to the Football World Cup but this was the World Cup on linkedin in payments and open banking.”
Many more interesting quotes in the video below:
