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Square, the point-of-sale and e-commerce unit of Block Inc., Wednesday announced the launch of Tap to Pay on Android for merchants in the United States, Australia, Ireland, France, Spain, and the United Kingdom. The technology will enable Square merchants to accept contactless payments with a compatible Android device, such as a mobile phone, at no additional cost.
The move comes less than a year after Square launched Tap to Pay for iPhone last September after testing the technology in June 2022 with select merchants.
To enable a Tap to Pay transaction, the Square merchant first opens the Square Point of Sale, Square Appointments, Square for Restaurants, or Square Invoices app, then enters the purchase data and presents their smartphone to the customer. The merchant’s phone displays the transaction total along with the familiar contactless-payments symbol. Consumers can choose to complete the payment with a contactless credit or debit card, or a digital wallet such as Google Pay.
“Square’s goal is to make sure that our sellers, no matter where they are or who they are serving, never miss a sale,” said Alexis Sowa, general manager of Square Point of Sale, in a statement. “Our launch of Tap to Pay on Android brings a unique technology to millions of sellers globally, giving merchants a simple way to accept payments and access world-class, integrated software for their business. Even though Tap to Pay technology has only been available for a short time, the breadth of applications and use cases we’re seeing across our seller base already reinforce its staying power.”
Tap to Pay technology, whether for Android phones or the iPhone, is being widely adopted by payment-technology providers and other platforms with payments capabilities. Earlier this week, Web registrar GoDaddy Inc. announced it was adding Tap to Pay for iPhone to its platform.
One Square merchant using Tap to Pay for Android and singled out by Square is garage-door supplier Overhead Door Company of Washington D.C., which uses the technology to enable field technicians to accept payments from plastic cards or from wallets embedded in other Android devices.
“We operate a large fleet of technicians who are always on the move, responding to multiple calls a day. Time is money for us, literally,” a company spokesperson says in a prepared statement. With the introduction of the tap-to-pay technology, technicians can “have the client tap their card or phone, and hit the road for their next appointment,” the statement says. “Meanwhile, we’re able to keep track of all the sales our crews make in the field right from our Square dashboard.”
Square’s launch of the Android version of tap to pay follows a similar move by the big fintech Stripe Inc., which in February announced it was introducing the technology in the U.S. market and five other countries.
