Ingenico ePayments to roll out TapHero

TapHero is a new, experimental technology that combines elements from both Card-Present and Card-Not-Present payments, and will enable smartphones equipped with an NFC reader to simply read the payment data from the card’s chip and auto-populate all the fields required to make a mobile payment.

Furthermore, Ingenico is adding a feature layer that simulates a card-present payment, for increased security. The company will show a live demo of TapHero at the Money20/20 conference, which takes place in Las Vegas from October 23-26. General availability is planned for 2017.

With its Ingenico Connect offering, Ingenico ePayments already provides merchants with a suite of tools and services for mobile optimisation. TapHero will add a completely new way to remove obstacles for consumers, claims the company.

TapHero is easy to integrate into a merchant’s checkout page, and will automatically detect the presence of an NFC reader. As such, the majority of smartphones currently on the market already support the technology, and those that don’t will not be presented the option to avoid confusion. Consumers don’t have to download anything, register their data or create an account to use the solution, and sensitive card data is never stored on the mobile device to further enhance privacy and security. Ingenico clients will be able to simply add the functionality as part of their Ingenico Connect integration.