NMI Taps Mastercard to Power Its New Tap-to-Pay Service for Small Merchants Eyeing Mobile Payments

With an eye on small merchants, payment processor NMI on Thursday announced a tap-to-pay feature driven by Mastercard Inc.’s Cloud Commerce app for Android smart phones or tablets.

The service will enable Android-using small and mid-size businesses to accept electronic payments without adding new hardware, Schaumburg, Ill.-based NMI says. NMI-connected merchants can download the Cloud Commerce app from the Google Play store to their devices, then log in with their NMI Gateway credentials to start accepting payments.

“Today, every merchant has a payment terminal right there in their pocket,” Tiffany Johnson, NMI’s chief product officer, said in a statement. “By simply downloading the Mastercard Cloud Commerce app and connecting to the NMI Gateway, they can start processing payments quickly and securely. As consumers seek simpler payment methods and small or seasonal merchants want to avoid costly hardware, it is important for our partners to be able to offer economical and frictionless payment acceptance options.”

NMI claims to be the first in the U.S. to offer Mastercard’s Cloud Commerce to its customers. “By combining NMI’s comprehensive payments solutions with our leading Cloud Commerce technology, we’re streamlining the process for merchants to not only offer greater choice to their customers but also modernize physical and digital acceptance,” Jennifer Marriner, executive vice president, Global Acceptance Solutions at Mastercard, said in a statement.

The Cloud Commerce app is available to U.S. clients, but NMI says it will be expanded to other regions—as well as other mobile platforms—later. An NMI spokesperson could not be reached for further comment Thursday morning.