SIX Payment Services, a Switzerland-based subsidiary of processors and payments solution provider Worldline, announced it's testing software point-of-sale (SoftPOS) technology in Poland, per Finextra. The solution enables merchants to download an app on any mobile device that runs Android 8.0 or a new version of the operating system to accept contactless transactions from cards and mobile wallets without using any additional hardware, like a dongle or terminal.

in store payments
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Several other payments companies are working on similar technologies because SoftPOS solutions can limit merchants' expenses and give them greater flexibility in-store. Mastercard and Paynetics are working on a SoftPOS offering together, as are Fiserv, Samsung, and Visa. All of these companies are developing SoftPOS technologies because the solutions should help them attract merchants by promising lower costs and easier payment processes. That's because SoftPOS solutions allow merchants to avoid paying for terminals of other POS technology, which should be particularly appealing to small businesses that may need to limit costs during the pandemic and in general, and allow them to accept payments anywhere in their store since mobile devices can be moved around freely without losing their ability to accept contactless payments.

The coronavirus pandemic is popularizing contactless payments around the world, which should cause merchant interest in SoftPOS technology to surge.

  • Consumers are increasingly using contactless payments to limit exposure to the virus. Countries around the world have bumped up their contactless transaction value limits to enable consumers to make more purchases that avoid them passing a card or cash back and forth with a cashier. And consumers are taking advantage, with contactless transaction volume surging in markets including the UK and Ireland. Even US consumers, who have been slow to adopt contactless payments in the past, are making more contactless transactions during the pandemic.
  • In response, merchants will be more interested in accepting contactless payments, especially because broader consumer adoption makes SoftPOS technology's lack of payment flexibility less of an issue. If consumers want to make transactions through contactless payment methods, merchants will need to be able to accept them, and SoftPOS technology should offer an inexpensive way to do so. Prior to the pandemic, sellers may have been wary of adopting SoftPOS tech because it can only accept contactless payments — there's no way for mobile devices to accept payments via chip, swipe, or cash without added hardware. But as consumers increasingly want to pay via contactless methods, this issue should fade and make SoftPOS technology widely popular as it rolls out.

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