Visa’s new Tap To Phone product is a boon for micro and small merchants around the world.

Visa (NYSE: V) said Wednesday that its innovative new Tap to Phone product was now live in more than 15 markets. After extensive piloting, Visa’s simple new mobile app is now ready to enable millions of small scale businesses to receive contactless payments using no other equipment except an Android smartphone.

In these days of concerns surrounding hygiene and contamination from viruses, contactless payments (or tap to pay, as pictured above) are preferred by both sellers and customers. (BusinessWire)

Tap to Phone

Visa’s new Tap to Phone product converts the latest generation android smartphone or tablet into a contactless (tap to pay) software-based point-of-sale (POS) terminal without the need for additional software.

The coronavirus pandemic has triggered a huge surge in digitization and businesses that are unable to access this new digital economy would be left behind.

However, Visa’s new product allows the 180 million micro and small merchants around the world to quickly plug into the digital economy by accepting contactless payments at any time and any location, even at customers’ homes. They can therefore avoid the loss of sales and improve their cash flows.

Visa estimates that less than 10% of micro and small merchants in many emerging markets currently are in a position to accept digital payments.

These businesses can quickly transform their Android devices into payment acceptance machines using Tap to Phone.

The product is especially useful for example in cutting down on customers’ lines because of six-foot social distancing rules.

Instead, the employees of the business can simply approach each customer and check them out using their phones enabled with Tap to Phone.

How it works

Full circle

“It was just five years ago when Visa set out to enable virtually any IoT or mobile device to make payments and now today, we are enabling many of those same devices to accept payments in a very simple way with Visa Tap to Phone,” said Mary Kay Bowman, global head of buyer and seller solutions, Visa. “With billions of phones around the world at the ready, the opportunity that comes with lighting them up as payment acceptance devices is enormous. Visa Tap to Phone could be one of the most profound ways to reinvent the physical shopping experience.”

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