Visa deploys India’s first Tap to Phone card acceptance solution with HDFC and DigitSecure

Visa has announced the first successful live deployment of Tap to Phonecard acceptance solution. The technology is certified by the Payments Card Industry (PCI). The global leader of payments technology, Visa, partnered with DigitSecure and HDFC Bank to deploy this solution. DeliveryPlus is the first merchant to go live with HDFC Bank as an acquirer.

The solution enables merchants to securely accept contactless card payments through an app on their NFC-enabled Android smartphones. NFC is a method of wireless data transfer. It enables devices like smartphones, laptops, tablets etc to share data among the devices nearby. NFC powers contactless payments through mobile wallets as well as cards. Therefore, merchants will not need a dedicated card acceptance device to accept payments. With this partnership, DigitSecure becomes the first company in the Asia Pacific region to receive PCI security certification for deploying this technology.

How will this technology help?

As already mentioned, this solution will enable merchants to accept card payments directly on their phones without requiring a dedicated card acceptance device. Apart from this, it will help financial institutions to significantly reduce operational costs. This will be possible because the process of merchant onboarding and account provisioning will be migrated to PCI certified payment acceptance cloud. The usage of the cloud will also ensure better security. With this, banks and fintech will be able to provide better card acceptance facilities to merchants. On the consumer front, cardholders will also be able to pay more securely and easily. Visa recently conducted a study which revealed that about 55% of consumers in India said that they’d like to use the Tap to Phone payment method due to its ease of use and time-saving capabilities. Thanks to this deployment, India has now joined the list of more than 15 markets that provide Visa Tap to Phone technology.

Comments from Industry leaders

Shailesh Paul, Head of Merchant Sales & Acquiring, India and South Asia, Visa said, “The pandemic has accelerated the need for businesses to embrace safe, secure and contactless payments. In line with our global commitment of digitizing 50 million small businesses, we’re delighted to do the first deployment of a PCI-certified Tap to Phonecard acceptance solution in partnership with HDFC Bank and DigitSecure, to offer easily accessible and asset-light, cost-effective solutions to merchants. As more Indians adopt contactless forms of payments, merchants across the country can now easily use their mobile phones as a digital payment acceptance device.”

Commenting on the partnership, Seshadri Kulkarni, CEO at DigitSecure said, “It is becoming increasingly necessary for merchants of all types and sizes to offer contact-free digital payments at all customer interactions points. With DigitSecure’s PCI Certified App-first SoftPos platform with ready global processing integrations, financial institutions can quickly enable small businesses for card acceptance at a small fraction of cost and time. Global businesses will find the platform compelling for it helps deliver consistent customer experience by way of minimal integrations and changes. We believe tap on phone technology will create a new paradigm in digital payments empowering small and on-the-go businesses to offer contactless payments to customers.”

Parag Rao, Country Head for Payments, Business, Consumer Finance, Digital Banking and Marketing, HDFC Bank said “The prevailing circumstances have hastened the need to deepen the digital payment ecosystem in the country. The MSMEs and merchant segments form a critical backbone of the economy and they must have access to the latest platforms available to enable digital payments. This global first Tap to Phone deployment, using smartphones, is part of our endeavour to provide affordable platforms for small merchants.”

Sandeep Yadav, CEO, DeliveryPlus, said: “As an e-com delivery services provider, we can scale quickly without incurring additional capital costs with DigitSecure SoftPoS Platform capability to process multiple merchants in different categories on the same device.”