White paper
Mapping the Journey into Mainstream Market Adoption of SoftPOS
SoftPOS crossed the chasm into mainstream adoption in little more than a decade. This paper sets out why: three barriers that fell, and two accelerants that pushed it over.
Barry Levett, CEO, Mypinpad · Published January 2026
Why SoftPOS?
The paper starts with the problem SoftPOS solves, and for whom.
Merchant device control and choice
PCI PTS terminals have to be bought, shipped, tracked, audited and eventually destroyed under PCI rules, so PSPs buy them and rent them out. SoftPOS breaks the link between the PSP and the device: merchants choose their own hardware, and changing PSP no longer means swapping it out.
Greater reach and speed to market
Because the payment logic is software, updates arrive through app stores or mobile device management instead of hardware recalls. New propositions, from Tap to Add Loyalty to Tap to Confirm Identity, ship without replacing devices.
Business-first workflows
A SoftPOS SDK sits inside the merchant's own app, so orders, inventory and payment live on one device. That removes manual reconciliation, and puts merchants rather than PSPs in charge of how payments fit their business.
Three barriers removed, two accelerants added
These five factors form the spine of the paper, with a chapter each.
Barrier 1 removed
Consumer device improvements
NFC on mainstream smartphones, and the Trusted Execution Environment inside the main processor, brought hardware-backed security to consumer devices without a separate secure chip. Android's scale gave developers one common platform to build on.
Barrier 2 removed
Standards fine-tuned and widely adopted
PCI SSC moved from SPoC and CPoC to PCI MPoC, which brought PIN and contactless acceptance onto the same commercial off-the-shelf device. MPoC v1.1 added modular SDK embedding and clearer rules for offline and fallback.
Barrier 3 removed
Contactless reached critical mass
The groundwork was laid between 2011 and 2014; the pandemic made tapping the default. Once consumers tap without thinking, merchants stop asking whether customers will pay on a phone and start asking why they still need a dedicated terminal.
Accelerant 1
Apple
Apple Pay turned tokenisation, biometrics and secure storage into a single gesture, and made network tokenisation mainstream. That trust model blurred the line between card-present and card-not-present, and Tap to Pay on iPhone followed in 2022.
Accelerant 2
The rise of the neobanks
Neobanks built for instant onboarding and mobile-first customers, so app-based acceptance fitted their model from the start. Their pace has set the Tap to Everything innovation cycle that slower incumbents now have to match.
The road to mainstream
Milestones the paper traces, from the first NFC phones to PCI MPoC v1.1.
- 2006PCI Security Standards Council founded by the major card networks
- 2010First Android smartphone with built-in NFC
- 2013Android KeyStore adopts hardware-backed key storage in the Trusted Execution Environment
- 2014iPhone 6 brings NFC to iPhone; Apple Pay launches as the first large-scale use of EMVCo network tokenisation
- 2018PCI SPoC: PIN entry on a consumer device, with an external secure card reader
- 2019PCI CPoC: contactless acceptance on a smartphone, no secure element required
- 2022Tap to Pay on iPhone launches; PCI MPoC unifies PIN and contactless on one device
- 2024PCI MPoC v1.1 adds modular SDK embedding and broader device support
Since publication
PCI SSC has extended the PCI PTS v5 deployment deadline by a year. New PTS v5 terminals can be deployed until 30 April 2027, not 30 April 2026. Plan your terminal estate.
The schemes are closing their SoftPOS pilot programmes and moving the industry onto PCI MPoC. If you still run on a CPoC or SPoC waiver, see what moving to MPoC involves.
Talk to us about SoftPOS
Tell us where you are on the journey. We will show you what the Maple platform can take off your hands.