The world of payments is evolving, and so is the way merchants and ISVs do business.
By the end of 2026, the number of worldwide digital wallet users is projected to exceed 5.2 billion, over 60% of the population. What’s more, proximity payment technologies, known as contactless payment solutions, such as Tap to Pay, currently hold an 86.8% share of the physical storefront payment segment.
Businesses that leverage Tap to Pay are not only diversifying their portfolio of modern payment methods; they’re solving major business pain points. They’re reducing hardware friction, enhancing security, and enabling instant data reconciliation, which all works together to drive scalable growth.
But whether you’re a SaaS company or individual merchant, the benefits of Tap to Pay in enhancing operational efficiency and as a business transformation tool are clear.
In this blog, we’ll explore the benefits of Tap to Pay for ISVs and merchants and its use cases, as well as gain feature insights from Stax experts Ryan Dodds, Senior Director of Product Management, and Anna-Sophia Wilson, Commercialization Strategy Director.
Continue reading to learn how Tap to Pay can transform the way you operate.
What is Tap to Pay?
Tap to Pay utilizes near-field communication (NFC) technology to accept in-person, contactless payments directly from your iOS device.
Your cell phone becomes a secure payment terminal, where consumers simply tap their digital wallet or physical credit or debit card (contactless-enabled) to your compatible device to complete a transaction.
This frictionless, hardware-free payment method delivers a fast, secure payment experience that busy, on-the-go merchants can benefit greatly from.
“From a product standpoint, it is about making payments faster, easier, and more secure by default,” says Dodds. “Tap to Pay lets customers pay in seconds, without extra devices, cables, or handoffs. Everything happens right on the phone, inside trusted software.”
That’s why Stax now offers Tap to Pay through the Stax mobile app or SDK (with Android available at a later date). “Because payments are built directly into the platform, we can design experiences that are simple for users and safe behind the scenes. Security, authentication, and compliance are handled at the system level, while merchants get a smooth checkout every time,” Dodds continues. “That combination of speed, convenience, and trust is what will define the next generation of digital payments, and it is what prepares a platform to scale for the next five years and beyond.”
Visit our Tap to Pay page for more information.
Tap to Pay as a vertical SaaS transformation tool
In 2026, vertical SaaS providers are leveraging payments as a growth engine – not just a necessary function. According to Stax recent data, 91% of ISVs expect growth from embedded payments in the next year. And as contactless payments now make up 50% of global in-person payments, including a Tap to Pay feature in your payment options is crucial.
“In the past, simply offering embedded payments within the software created enough value for business owners,” says Wilson. “Now, with constant technological advancements and increased demand for personalization and flexibility, SaaS companies are pressured to do more. Tap to Pay becomes another tool that SaaS companies can use to improve the payments experience and increase customer satisfaction.”
But aside from supplying a payment method desired by your customers, Tap to Pay can quickly become an integral part of your SaaS business strategy.
Cost-effective
Tap to Pay is a cost efficient alternative to traditional hardware, removing upfront hardware costs or rental payments. “It helps SaaS platforms launch payments without massive overhead,” says Dodds. But more importantly, it permits card-present (CP) fees, saving you money due to decreased fraud risk. “Chargebacks are also easier to win than traditional CNP [card-not-present] transactions,” says Wilson. “If a merchant is requesting a tip, the customer is also more likely to pay a higher amount when completing the transaction in person.”
Fast onboarding
Tap to Pay is a hardware-free payment method, helping to eliminate onboarding bottlenecks. With the download of the Stax mobile app, quick activation is simple, and, once approved, merchants can go live with their payments in moments. No waiting on shipping deliveries, budgeting hardware costs, or submitting support tickets.
Merchant stickiness
Tap to Pay scales with your merchants, keeping up as their needs evolve. With an all-in-one app, merchants can manage their inventory, schedule, and money in a single platform, reducing churn and eliminating third-party accessories.
Data reconciliation
With Tap to Pay, payments are immediately tied to your customer record within the platform, eliminating tedious and error-prone manual entry. As your merchants increase their in-person processing volume, you’re able to effectively measure the health of your merchants and offer additional services where needed.
Frictionless vertical realities
When you integrate Tap to Pay into your industry-specific software, the point of sale is wherever the work is being done. From field services to healthcare, to professional services and education, Tap to Pay expands your clients’ reach, allowing for frictionless, reliable, and mobile contactless payments.
Explore the benefits of Tap to Pay for each vertical below.
Field services
For many field service workers, be it HVAC, plumbers, landscapers, and more, your office is often the truck you drive. And when you’re constantly on the go, the burden on managing, charging, and troubleshooting connectivity issues with Bluetooth dongles or hardware is one you can’t afford.
With Tap to Pay, you can say goodbye to headaches like “device not found” errors and dropped connections. More importantly, Tap to Pay provides payment upon completion. Field workers are able to complete a service and secure a payment the same day – no waiting on invoices, no checks lost in the mail, no delays on payment for the service you provided – improving Days Sales Outstanding (DSO) and, in turn, your operational cash flow.
Healthcare
Both brick-and-mortar and mobile doctors offices benefit from Tap to Pay. When a waiting room is full, providing quick check-in and check-out is necessary for a seamless healthcare experience. Whereas traditional card insertion can take up valuable time, Tap to Pay helps alleviate waiting room bottlenecks, creating a better customer experience.
“A vertical that continues to grow is specialty healthcare, especially in-home medical services and spas,” says Wilson. “These merchants have the need for mobile options that tie back into their EHR system for record keeping, but they may not want to send an invoice for payments, take the time to manually enter the card information, or invest in a mobile reader.”
With Tap to Pay, healthcare providers benefit from on-the-spot co-pays, reducing the need for invoicing later on. Tap to Pay also provides reduced PCI scope to healthcare practices, as card data is tokenized and never stored or “seen” by the computer system. “Due to the added security of Tap to Pay transactions, this also reduces concerns around HIPPA compliance,” says Wilson.
Moreover, in an environment where a sick population is often present, hygiene is paramount. Tap to Pay allows for a touch-free payment experience, helping prevent the spread of illness in high-risk environments like senior living facilities or pediatricians’ offices.
Professional services
When it comes to high-value services, such as legal, accounting, or tax practices, reducing the friction between service and payment is a top priority. With Tap to Pay, professional service providers can eliminate the need for chasing payments and complex billing. Instead, they can collect consultation fees at the time of meeting in a secure, professional manner.
Tap to Pay also provides better protection of high-ticket services fees, as in-person “taps” are difficult to dispute (as opposed to remote digital payments), lowering chargeback risk.
Education
Tap to Pay is equipped to handle the many payment needs of a K-12 school or university campus. From line busting in the lunchroom, at sporting events, or at the bookstore, to collecting field trip money with a simple tap in the front office, Tap to Pay offers a quick, seamless method of payment when and where you need it.
Enhancing operational efficiency
However, Tap to Pay is not exclusively beneficial to ISVs. Individual business owners looking to enhance operational efficiency and secure sales on-the-go will find the Tap to Pay feature an invaluable tool to streamlining business and increasing revenue.
Line busting
For retail and restaurant businesses, navigating a rush hour with a slow, dated piece of hardware can cost you weekly or monthly revenue goals. Customers often abandon their purchase due to long check-out lines. But with Tap to Pay, high-volume businesses can achieve faster checkout times, meaning more customers served and more money in your pocket. In fact, Tap-to-Pay functionality has reduced transaction times by 63%, making checkout experiences significantly faster than cash or chip-and-pin transactions.
Check out anywhere
In the face of carrying around hardware and/or navigating Bluetooth connectivity issues with payment dongles, service-based businesses and on-the-go merchants quickly realize the worth of Tap to Pay. Tap to Pay eliminates the frustrations of traveling with hardware, forgetting to charge devices, and card reading failures. According to Dodds, Tap to Pay is invaluable for “basically any business where mobility matters more than fixed locations.”
“In those industries,” he says, “a phone plus good software is all you need.” With Tap to Pay, you can accept contactless payments directly on iOS smartphones – no readers or terminals needed.
Security and compliance
Tap to Pay is considered a card-present (CP) transaction. This is unlike a card-not-present (CNP) transaction, which occurs remotely without a physical card, resulting in higher processing fees due to increased fraud risk. Tap to Pay features EMV processing, end-to-end encryption, and compliance with PCI DSS and card network security standards. Thus, every transaction is carefully protected against fraud with the latest security technology. According to Wilson, “The NFC technology that powers Tap to Pay keeps all data completely secure and tokenizes the information immediately, making it one of the safest options to process payments.”
Final words
Tap to Pay has the potential to revolutionize the way you do business. But according to Dodds, it also lowers the barriers to running a real business: “You no longer need to buy hardware, wait for shipping, configure devices, or worry about replacements. If you have a phone, you can get paid professionally on day one.”
At the merchant level, this secure, frictionless payment method paves the way for faster revenue reconciliation, lower costs, and seamless daily operations. For SaaS businesses, Tap to Pay means increased merchant stickiness, greater platform monetization, and simple data reconciliation.
Stax focused on integrating enterprise-grade Tap to Pay technology into our platform in a way that feels seamless and reliable for merchants. “We had to make sure onboarding was simple, transactions were fast, reporting was clean, and support teams had the visibility they needed,” says Dodds. “When someone taps a card on a phone, there can be no hesitation. It has to feel just as professional as a traditional terminal. And now it does.”
According to Wilson, “Tap to Pay helps make payments more accessible across the board while reducing reliance on outdated hardware and connectivity issues. They power faster transactions, a better user experience and reliable security that helps protect both business owners and consumers.”
Stax is able to provide these benefits to both our direct merchants and our ISV partners to continue improving their payments experience.
If you’re ready to incorporate Tap to Pay to your platform, get started with the Stax Pay iOS mobile app and SDK. Tap to Pay through Stax provides a hardware-free way to accept payments from contactless cards and mobile wallets.
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