Merchants across India will soon be able to accept contactless digital payments on their Android NFC smartphone without needing any additional hardware.

State Bank of India (SBI) is making the software-only solution available through a new SBI Merchant app to be launched as an extension of its Yono payments platform.

“In the next two to three years, we are aiming to digitize millions of merchants by upgrading their mobile phones into a point-of-sale device accepting all form factors, accessing value-added services such as loyalty, GST invoicing, inventory management etc and connecting it into an interface to avail other banking products at a click of a button,” SBI chairman Dinesh Kumar Khara says.

“The launch is in line with the Reserve Bank of India’s recent announcement of creating a payments infrastructure development fund to encourage acquirers to deploy POS infrastructure (both physical and digital) in lesser penetrated areas of the country,” the bank adds.

“Aiming to enable millions of merchants through mobile-led technology to accept digital payments, SBI has a plan to deploy low-cost acceptance infrastructure across India over the next two years targeting 20m potential merchants across India in the retail and enterprise segment.”

The Yono SBI Merchant app has been developed in partnership with Visa and uses the card network’s Tap to Phone solution, which rolled out in January 2021.

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