Ingenico has bought SoftPOS provider Phos for an amount that has not been made public.
Phos was started in 2018. It lets merchants take payments directly with a tap of a card on an Android phone, so they don’t need a separate card reader.
For Ingenico, the purchase is part of a strategic shift toward providing software-based services for digital payments in the EftPOS market, which has always been based on hardware.
SoftPOS is seen as a growing and changing market with many uses for both in-aisle payments at larger retailers and for small merchants and “solopreneurs.” The number of SoftPoS terminals in use around the world is expected to grow from 3.1 million in 2022 to nearly 12 million in 2027.
CEO of Phos Brad Hyett says:
“We see strong customer demand and significant double-digit growth in the SoftPoS addressable market worldwide and are convinced that Ingenico will help us capture more of that market and explore new use cases with clients globally. We look forward to accelerating the business together with the Ingenico teams over the coming months.”
Ingenico plans to add Phos to its Payments Platform as a Service (PPaaS) for acquirers, payment service providers, and independent software vendors that works with any kind of device.
Giulio Montemagno, who works for Ingenico and is the general manager of PPaaS, says:
“Our clients and partners around the world have clearly identified SoftPoS as one of the biggest opportunities they see right now. They consider SoftPoS a strategic option to engage with new customer segments and develop and test innovative use cases at scale, with minimum incremental investments in technology and distribution.”
