Tap to Pay

Apple's Tap to Pay on iPhone, available to UK businesses since July 2023, and the equivalent on Android use the phone's NFC chip to read a contactless card or wallet. The payment then runs through the business's payment provider in the usual way: authorisation, capture, settlement and the normal merchant service charge. The provider's app, or an app built on the provider's SDK, is what turns the phone into a terminal, and Apple requires the provider to be certified for it.

Why it matters to a business: it removes the hardware from in-person payments. A mobile trade, a market stall, a delivery driver or a second till at a busy time can take a card on a phone already in a pocket. Payments over the contactless limit are taken on the same phone: the customer enters their PIN on the screen, so no separate card reader is needed.

For a software platform, Tap to Pay is one of the more visible payment products: a field service app, a clinic app or a club app that lets its user take a card payment on their own phone, with the payment recorded against the right job, patient or member, has done something a standalone card machine cannot. The capability comes from the regulated acquiring partner's SDK; the platform's own developer builds the screen around it.