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NEWS
Worldpay turns smartphones into contactless terminals
is announcing the trial launch of a mobile software for contactless mobile points of sale (mPOS). IBS Journal had the opportunity to talk with Nick Telford-Reed, Director of Technology Innovation at Worldpay, and get an insight into the company’s view and plans for the product.
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The app, named “My Business Mobile”, is able to leverage mobile contactless payment technology and reverse- engineer it to act as a contactless terminal. Unlike other mobile hardware payment solutions, such as iZettle, Worldpay’s alternative doesn’t require extra equipment, or the shopper to enter their PIN to validate the transaction. They just have to tap their card against the mobile.
This app was designed by Worldpay’s Technology Innovation team for small-time merchants and SMEs. The application will allow merchants to make sales anywhere and switch between compatible devices. There is a spending cap of £30.
According to Telford-Reed, the idea originated in the Near Field Communication (NFC) tech behind Android Pay. If you could turn a phone into a card, you can convert it into a terminal. However, Telford-Reed told IBS Journal, that required much more work. Reading an NFC tag is easy, but giving the phone the ability to process transactions while keeping up with security protocols is much tougher.
That task was much easier for Android smartphones. In fact, since Apple’s closed infrastructure hasn’t allowed developers to access the contactless reader, it has been impossible to re-engineer it.
“By taking hardware out of the equation, we are really bringing payments into the future,” said Nick Telford-Reed, director of technology innovation at Worldpay, in the release. “This revolutionary new technology app has the potential to enable micro-businesses to benefit from taking card payments without the need for dedicated hardware. We all carry a phone in our pocket, and now these sole traders and small businesses can use that same phone to
orldpay, the UK payment processor,
take payments. They need never miss a sale.”
The company is open to applications for beta version, which is aiming to test the app with 50 to 60 participants. The pilot will run for 6 months, and is eyeing a full-scale release by the end of the year/beginning of next year.
“The pilot scheme we’re running in London will give cash only businesses the opportunity to catapult themselves into the 21st Century,” Telford-Reed says “But this is really only the beginning. This kind of technology could also become particularly significant in the developing world.”
Even though many may currently see contactless-only as limiting, Telford-Reed commented that according to a mandate by Visa and Mastercard, there will not be any card that won’t support contactless by 2020 across the Europe.
“We currently support over 300 currencies, and what concerns us is that our customers are able to pay and take payments anywhere, anytime. If this means providing customers with cashless and mobile options, Worldpay will do so.”
The company has plans to expand, confident in the revolutionary capabilities of the product. “One of the most exciting things in all of this is that we will allow other payment apps and services to embed and incorporate our software, so it’s not restricted to our app.”
www.ibsintelligence.com © IBS Intelligence 2017
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