Tap to Phone: New Hardware Requirements - What You Need to Know
Tap to Phone technology initially envisioned a revolutionary shift: transforming everyday smartphones into powerful payment terminals for contactless transactions. This vision, fueled by the ubiquity of smartphones and the increasing demand for accepting payments everywhere, promised to empower businesses of all sizes with affordable and accessible payment acceptance solutions. However, the reality has evolved beyond this initial concept.
The emergence of specialized "professional devices" – dedicated hardware solutions designed specifically for Tap to Phone – has significantly altered the landscape. These devices, often resembling mini-terminals with enhanced features like improved security, dedicated processing power, and optimized user interfaces, have become increasingly popular. While offering certain advantages, their proliferation has raised concerns about the payment experience for the consumer and the need for more stringent regulatory oversight.
From Smartphones to Specialized Devices
The initial vision of Tap on Phone centered around leveraging the ubiquitous nature of smartphones and commercial off the shelf devices (COTS). By integrating payment processing capabilities directly into existing devices, businesses could easily and affordably accept contactless payments without the need for costly dedicated terminals. This approach promised to democratize payment acceptance, empowering small businesses, micro-merchants, and even individuals with the ability to accept payments on the go with apps such as CheckoutX.
However, the rise of these professional devices has introduced a new dynamic. These devices, developed by dedicated hardware providers, offer several advantages:
- Optimized Performance: Designed specifically for payment processing, these devices typically offer faster transaction speeds, improved connectivity, and enhanced reliability.
- Dedicated Functionality: They often include features tailored to specific business needs, such as receipt printing or NFC placement above the screen for the consumer to tap.
While these advantages are significant, the emergence of these specialized devices has also created a need for a more nuanced approach to regulation and compliance.
New Standards: A Necessary Evolution
Recognizing the evolving landscape of Tap to Pay solutions, leading payment networks like Visa and Mastercard have introduced new standards and certification requirements. These measures aim to:
- Ensure Consistent User Experience: By mandating compliance, these regulations ensure that all Tap to Phone devices, regardless of their origin, meet a minimum level of user experience and reliability.
- Protect Cardholders: These standards prioritize the payment experience for the consumers, making sure the contactless functionality follows the same standards everywhere.
- Maintain Consumer Trust: By fostering a recognizable and reliable payment ecosystem, these regulations help maintain consumer trust in contactless payments and drive widespread adoption.
The Impact
The SoftPOS landscape is undergoing a significant shift. Starting September 1st, 2025, new regulations from Visa will impact the hardware used by businesses for accepting contactless payments. These changes primarily target professional dedicated hardware devices, often used for Tap on Phone transactions in a business setting, in the short term but will also impact consumer devices in a couple of years.
Crucially, all new deployments of these professional devices after this date must be EMVCo Level 1 certified. This involves testing in a certified laboratory to ensure the device meets the required read range of the NFC chip.
- Reduced Read Range: For many handheld computers and other mobile business devices, the requirement is for Reduced Range 2 (RR2), meaning the device must be able to read cards within a secure distance of 2 centimeters.
- Non-consumer Tablets: For business tablets, the requirement is for Full Range PCD, ensuring reliable card reading at the standard distance of 4 centimeters.
This means that simply having NFC capability on a device is no longer sufficient. Businesses and providers that support them must prioritize the use of certified hardware.
| Terminal Type | Effective 1 September 2025 | Effective 1 September 2027 |
|---|---|---|
| Consumer smartphone | RR1 recommended | RR1 required |
| Consumer tablet | RR2 recommended | RR2 required |
| Business mobile computer | RR2 required for new deployments | RR2 required for all deployments |
| Business tablet | Full Range PCD required for new deployments | Full Range PCD required for all deployments |
Note that the above table is what has been communicated by Visa, while Mastercard and other card networks are yet to release their requirements.
So if you are an independent software vendor looking to offer their merchants a SoftPOS solution this year and onwards, that is not being used on a consumer smartphone but rather a specialized business mobile computer or tablet, you must carefully consider the hardware providers out there. EMVCo will list all approved products and solutions on their website, which you can see here »
The way forward
While we offer our contactless CheckoutX app on both smartphones and other SoftPOS accessable devices, we also offer modern and state-of-the-art certified payment terminals running on Android for any use-case. With these, you can make sure to deploy certified terminals ready for both contactless and contact transactions, for any merchant and any business type. The best thing about our Payments Platform is that every single acceptence device - whether it's in-person payment terminals or SoftPOS solutions, or Online payment links or embedded checkouts - everything is running on the same API. So you simply need to do one integration, and then you are ready to scale your offering with white-label payments included.