Worldpay is conducting extended trials of a software-based mobile points of sale system which helps cash-only mobile and micro retailers to accept card and phone payments on their NFC devices.
My Business Mobile enables businesses to download an app and accept face-to-face contactless card transactions on their smartphone without the need to plug in any additional hardware. The company believes the innovation gives it an advantage over long-established vendors like iZettle, SumUp and Square, which require the use of chip-and PIN reader peripherals.
The UK payments processor says the technology will be piloted among up to 50 micro-businesses in London in 2017, including coffee carts, barbers, festival vendors, pop-up shops and market traders.
City-based coffee cart business Feijoa Tree Coffee is the first to use the app as part of a six month long pilot which Worldpay will use to assess a possible larger scale roll-out at a later date and inform further development of the technology.
Nick Telford-Reed director of technology innovation at Worldpay comments: “The pilot scheme we’re running in London will give cash only businesses the opportunity to catapult themselves into the 21st Century by taking contactless card payments on the go. But this is really only the beginning. This kind of technology could also become particularly significant in the developing world, where the cost of renting a card machine can be a barrier for small businesses when it comes to accepting card payments.”