Taiwan has become the second country after the USA where merchants are able to accept in-store contactless payments on their iPhones using Apple’s Tap to Pay solution

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According to Apple’s Tap to Pay on iPhone developer’s page, the brand’s SoftPOS feature in Taiwan is now supported by payment services providers CTBC Bank and TapPay. Support from Taipei Fubon Bank is expected to be “coming soon”.

Tap to Pay removes the necessity of expensive POS hardware, enabling merchants to accept contactless payments from contactless credit/debit cards, Apple?Pay, Apple?Watch, and smartphones with other digital wallets — right on their iPhones.

Tap to Pay on iPhone was first made available in the United States in July 2022. Dutch omnichannel payment processing company Adyen was one of the first fintechs to launch the new contactless payments option for its iPhone users.

Currently, US merchants can also accept contactless payments on iPhone in the US via the integration with Square, Stripe and GoDaddy. More industry players like Chase, Clover from Fiserv, North American Bancard and Worldpay from FIS are joining soon.

All transactions made using Tap?to?Pay on?iPhone are encrypted and processed using the Secure Element – the same technology that makes Apple?Pay private and secure.

Besides accepting payments, merchants can use the solution to read a customer’s payment card without making a charge. This way, they can add a card to a customer’s file for future subscription payments or issue a refund without a receipt.

In addition, merchants that have loyalty cards supported by Apple?Wallet can send requests to Apple?Pay customers to join their loyalty program, as they may track Tap?to?Pay on?iPhone transactions.