Six Bay Area Counties Order Contactless Payments to Reduce Virus Spread

Six Bay Area counties are ordering businesses to provide contactless payment systems or disinfect all payment equipment after each use. Local company Touchpoint.io announces a zero contact bill presentation and payment solution that works alongside all Point of Sale systems and allows every business and customer to comply with the new mandate.

According to the National Institutes of Health, the virus that causes COVID-19 can live on plastic surfaces like shared payment devices and credit cards for up to three days. This virus transmission vector is eliminated with new Safe Distance Pay technology, which moves bill presentation and payment entirely onto a customer’s mobile phone, alleviating all contact with potentially contaminated shared payment devices and credit cards.

“Before Safe Distance Pay, contactless technology was expensive to deploy or required a new Point of Sale, and often encouraged touching a shared payment device or breaching social distance,” reports Israel L’Heureux, CEO of Touchpoint.io. “Now zero contact Safe Distance Pay can be practiced at every merchant: retail counters, drive thru, curbside and pickup. Stores can even send customers a 'pay link' via built-in SMS so call-in orders and bills can be paid from home before arrival.”

Customers do not require an app on their phone to pay. Secure payments are completed germ-free via personal iPhone or Android phone utilizing built-in Apple Pay or Google Pay. Unlike previous generation mobile payments, there is no dongle to clean or charge, customers are never asked to present a card, press a button, sign a screen, or steady a payment terminal, all of which can transmit germs.

“Because you can instantly see the bill total on your own phone and simply tap to tip and pay, we eliminate the risk of transmitting a virus through any contact with a shared payment device that may not have been completely disinfected after each use,” says L’Heureux.

Touchpoint.io’s Safe Distance Pay solution has been in development for more than 6 months. The company provides innovative payment, loyalty, and order management solutions and has processed over $1B of orders in mobile scenarios.

Businesses can download the free SafeDistancePay merchant app for iPad, and complete their registration at www.safedistancepay.com to be live in about 24 hours.