By Tom Phillips[1] • • Updated • nfcw.com[2]
Retailers and other small business owners in six US cities will soon be able to accept contactless payments on an Android NFC smartphone using Visa’s software-only Tap to Phone[3] solution.
Visa launched its first US pilot scheme for the solution in Washington DC this week and will go on to distribute the technology to small businesses in Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles and Miami as part of a “commerce in a box” initiative.
“Visa’s Tap to Phone technology turns sellers’ Android-based phones into point-of-sale acceptance devices, providing an on-ramp to the digital economy with the ease of downloading an app,” the card network says.
“In partnership with the minority-owned, mobile smartphone technology and solution provider ZmBEZI[4], the first US pilot programme will provide ZmBIZI’s Z1 devices with Tap to Phone capabilities to 50 black-owned SMBs in Washington DC.”
“Commerce in a box features a curated selection of offers, discounts and bundles from Visa’s Authorize.net and Visa partners designed to help SMBs with what they need to move their business forward digitally — from accepting digital payments and building an eCommerce site to marketing to their audience in new ways and providing online marketing tools to run and protect their business,” the company adds.
Visa unveiled the Tap to Phone solution in January 2020[5] and announced in October 2020 that it would be launching the service in the US[6] after starting to roll out pilots in more 15 countries, including Russia, UAE, Italy, Brazil
