Freecharge partners Tonetag to provide sound-based digital payment services

Freecharge, a digital wallet company, has collaborated with Tonetag to provide a new sound-based digital payment method.

Using sound waves digital payment method, users can make payments at nearly 62 outlets of Trust Pharmacy, mall parking, NICE toll plaza and several other colleges and office parking associated as ToneTag merchants.

Merchants can now accept sound based payments through any device, be it Laptop's, PC's, tablets, EDC's, mPOS, smartphones, feature phones and so on. Without any additional cost, merchants can accept sound based payments using FreeCharge on the existing device they have.

Users need to click ‘Pay or Send’ in their FreeCharge App and select sound payment. The merchant then needs to enter the transaction details on the platform he is using which will emit a sound signal to the customer's App as a replacement of an OTP or QR code scanning for the payment process. The authentication process takes microseconds in the background, and the customer gets a Pay Now button, clicking on which completes the payment process.

Moreover, apart from sound payment, users can also make the payment using On-The-Go-Pin, scanning the QR code or getting there in-app QR code scanned by the merchant.

Govind Rajan, CEO, FreeCharge said, “...launching sound payments on our platform in partnership with ToneTag, will ensure that we remain the best. The ease of the payment mechanism coupled with no infrastructure cost to set up the payments is the USP of the product, and we hope to delight our customers with more such innovations in the future as well.”

Currently, ToneTag is housed in nearly 38 million consumer devices through various tie-ups with payment partners, and 42,000 merchants accept payments using this technique.

Apart from ToneTag, iKaaz also provides sound-based payments services. The company is reportedly working on similar products in the contactless payments space.