Tap, tap – knocking at the door of payments

NMI just made it possible for businesses to accept in-person payments with Tap to Pay on iPhone. Tap to Pay on iPhone supports all manner of contactless payments, including contactless credit and debit cards, Apple pay and other digital wallets, using only an iPhone and supporting iOS app. There is no need for any additional hardware or terminal.

And in related news, Visa launched the "first ever" application of tap on phone technology in collaboration with Samsung. Consumers can now transfer funds between digital wallets, using Samsung phones, powered by Visa's tap technology and enabled by the Visa Direct real-time solution platform. The Visa Direct platform supports near instantaneous payments, typically in 30 minutes or less, 24/7.

(Visa and Mastercard offer similar "tap" technologies relying on NFC technology. The Mastercard technology is called Tap on Phone; Visa's is Tap to Phone.)

Tap to Transfer is a peer-to-peer P2P payment option that enables Samsung Galaxy users to send money to the bank accounts of friends and family simply by tapping their phones together, or by tapping the other person's participating contactless debit card, regardless of the receiver's device or digital wallet.

In other words, there is no need for app navigation, no manual entry of card details, no wait times, and no more hassles if friends exchanging money don't have the same P2P app.

Ease of use for consumers

"More than ever, consumers want to manage their money with the same simplicity that they use to request a rideshare, order food delivery or share photos with friends and family," Visa said in a press release. That's what tap to transfer does: it moves money quickly and directly from a Samsung wallet to a friend's bank account.

"This literally puts the power of money movement in the hands of consumers. Send money to a bank account within a minute with a simple tap between phones," said Jim Filice, vice president and head of NA Money Movement at Visa. "Under the hood, Visa Direct's real-time payments help facilitate the movement of funds, bringing speed, security, convenience and scale to Tap to Transfer."

Visa introduced Tap to Phone about four years ago and says it has recently experienced a surge in global adoption along with use cases, like tap to add card, tap to activate card, tap to send, and tap to confirm (which allows users to quickly and easily authenticate high-value transfers). In March 2025, Visa reported that Tap to Phone had experienced a 200 percent increase in usage over the previous year, with the highest usage among sellers in the United States, Brazil and the UK.

"Tap to phone is a tech equalizer for businesses," said Marak Nelson, global head of consumer products at Visa. "So, we're continuing to expand our tap capabilities."

NMI, iPhones and Mastercard

Most mobile devices come with built-in NFC capability that lets them "talk" to other nearby NFC devices. What these announcement demonstrate is that the same technology that allows a customer to tap their phone on a contactless terminal to effect payment can also support the use of that very same phone as a contactless terminal.

The capability has been around for years, but has been hindered by the lack of mobile POS applications and PCI-DSS security requirements. Now that those hindrances have been overcome, payment services providers can offer merchants a better, more affordable way to accept electronic payments

NMI was one of the first payment solutions providers to offer Tap On Phone. Initially, NMI supported using the technology with Android phones. Now it can support using it with iPhones, as well.

NMI's partners can either embed the technology directly into their own iOS apps, using NMI's iOS SDK, or provide their merchants an out of the box solution on iPhone XS or later, running the latest version of iOS.

"With our low-code SDK and no-code Cloud Commerce app option, we are giving businesses of all sizes – from enterprise platforms to mom-and-pop shops – a fast, flexible way to accept secure, contactless payments and deliver seamless checkout experiences everywhere they do business," said Tiffany Johnson, chief product officer at NMI.

"The future of commerce is rooted in checkout solutions that are convenient, frictionless and secure," said Seema Chibber, executive vice president for core payments at Mastercard North America. "With this contactless solution, we are driving greater acceptance across physical locations and offering more choice and flexibility for merchants and consumers alike."

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