Worldpay, the UK’s leading payment processor, has announced the launch of the first ever extended-trial of a software only card payment mPOS (mobile point of sale). 

My Business Mobile will allow businesses to download an app and accept face-to-face contactless card transactions on their smartphone without the need for any additional payments hardware. The app will also accept payments via Apple Pay and Android Pay.    Although some mobile device payment solutions do exist that allow card payments, they still need a piece of hardware to make the payment – usually for the shopper to enter their PIN. 

My Business Mobile is a proprietary application born from Worldpay’s Technology Innovation team, enabling merchants such as coffee carts and market traders to take simple card payments on-the-go using just their smartphone.  The application will allow merchants to make sales anywhere they are and switch between compatible devices.

The My Business Mobile app can be simply downloaded onto a smartphone to accept contactless card payments anywhere, any time of up to £30. The technology is expected to appeal particularly to a range of small businesses including coffee carts, barbers, festival vendors, pop-up shops and market traders to take swift, easy on-the-go payments.

Nick Telford-Reed, Director of Technology Innovation at Worldpay commented: “By taking hardware out of the equation, we are really bringing payments into the future. This revolutionary new technology app has the potential to enable micro-businesses to benefit from taking card payments without the need for dedicated hardware. We all carry a phone in our pocket, and now these sole traders and small businesses can use that same phone to take payments.  They need never miss a sale.”

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 continued: “The pilot scheme we’re running in London will give cash only businesses the opportunity to catapult themselves into the 21^st 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.”