Taiwan’s CTBC Bank has partnered with Malaysian fintech firm Soft Space to allow its customers to pay their taxi fares through tap-on-phone payments.

CTBC Bank’s “Tap to Phone” service leverages Android smartphones with near-field communication (NFC) technology to accept contactless card payments powered by Soft Space.

Tap to Phone has been approved by payment brands and PCI CPoC standards to ensure that all payment transactions are encrypted with multiple security layers to prevent credit card information and sensitive data on the mobile phones or tablets from being accessed by third parties.

The cooperation with taxi operators Taiwan Taxi and its 55688 Delegated Driver Service includes over 5,000 taxi drivers and 2,000 designated drivers collectively.

They will not need to invest in expensive dedicated payment terminals and will have to sign up with CTBC Bank to activate their accounts.

Consumers can use a physical credit cards or mobile wallets such as Apple Pay, Google Pay, Samsung Pay or smart watches and wearables to make a quick payment by tapping the back of the driver’s mobile phone.

CTBC Bank will also provide receipts to consumers by SMS, email or QR code, which significantly reduces merchants’ burden of keeping paper receipts as well as eliminating the related risk and costs.

The payment options of Tap to Phone also support instalments and CTBC Banks’ reward points redemption.

“As the largest commercial bank in Taiwan, we are constantly finding new ways to enhance customer experiences.

 

By partnering Soft Space, we ensure that our innovation can empower small businesses, such as taxi drivers, to experience a more convenient, affordable, and secure way to collect fares, and Tap to Phone does exactly that,”

said a spokesperson from CTBC Bank.

“This partnership has demonstrated that contactless payments have potentially limitless applications because Tap to Phone as a SoftPOS payment solution can be seamlessly deployed to what is already available out there in the market, in this case the thousands of NFC-enabled devices that taxis drivers own.

 

We are privileged to work with CTBC Bank on this and we are proud that our technology is being used to further democratise payments on a daily basis through taxis rides,”

said Joel Tay, Chief Executive Officer, Soft Space.