Visa and USSC let small businesses take card payments with just a phone
U Accept works on any phone with a tap chip, so there is no card terminal to buy. Visa says 83 percent of Filipino small business owners who started accepting cards reported higher sales.
Visa and USSC Money Services announced U Accept on August 11, a way for micro, small and medium businesses in the Philippines to accept contactless card payments using any smartphone that has NFC, the same tap chip your phone already uses to tap and pay. There is no separate card machine to rent or buy.
It runs as a feature inside the uGrow app rather than as a new download. Beyond taking a tapped card, U Accept can send a payment link, email the buyer a digital receipt, and keep a transaction history, sitting next to uGrow's existing sales monitoring and inventory tools. The technology underneath is Visa Accept, which Visa built to turn an ordinary phone into the payment terminal.
Why it matters
Small businesses are more than 99 percent of all business enterprises in the country and account for 67 percent of total employment, so the price of a card terminal keeps a lot of people out of card payments entirely. Visa's own research found that 83 percent of Filipino small business owners reported higher turnover after they started accepting cards, and 41 percent said customers spent more when paying by card. Among those who do not accept cards yet, 67 percent said they would if someone helped them set it up.
Payments innovation is now within reach of every Filipino entrepreneur, unlocking many opportunities for small businesses. Jeffrey Navarro, Visa Philippines Country Manager
The catch to watch
The announcement does not say what a shop pays per transaction, and that fee decides whether this is actually cheaper than what a merchant is using now, so ask before signing up. The phone also needs NFC, which cheaper and older handsets often leave out. The uGrow app is listed on Google Play, and the announcement did not say whether an iPhone version is coming. Worth remembering too: those sales figures come from Visa's own research, and shops that take up card payments may already be the ones growing fastest.