Live Payments has announced a new partnership with Visa to help Australian small and micro businesses to accept digital payments securely using Visa technology.
Live Payments is one of Australia’s leading payment providers with more than 11,000 merchants. The new partnership will employ Visa’s Tap to Phone technology to transform a merchant’s smartphone into a POS device.
Participating merchants will be able to accept fast, secure payments from any contactless-enabled Visa card, device, or wearable, which a customer simply taps to pay against the merchant’s smartphone or tablet.
Hailed as a game changer for small businesses, and a first for taxi operators, the Tap to Phone system requires no additional hardware, and is especially beneficial for small businesses that don’t have the resources for full POS infrastructure.
Brian McGrory, Visa’s head of merchant sales and acquiring for Australia, New Zealand and South Pacific said this is opening another door to the digital economy for small businesses.
“By making it easier to accept digital payments anywhere, anytime, Tap to Phone is creating new ways for small and micro businesses to reach customers, prevent lost sales, and support cash flow.”
There is appetite for Tap to Phone, with two in three (66 per cent) Australians reported being inconvenienced having to find an ATM to withdraw cash to pay businesses such as mobile groomers, tradespeople or cleaners who can’t accept card payments on the spot.
“Given the rapid adoption of digital payments and the major role smartphones play in our day-to-day lives, we expect Tap to Phone will become an increasingly popular way to pay among Australian consumers,” said McGrory.
Live Payments has also integrated its Tap to Phone solution with Cybersource, Visa’s global payment and fraud management platform that provides businesses with a one-stop solution for managing payments.
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