Nearpays
Turning any Android phone into a card terminal
An all-in-one payments and business platform for African SMBs: tap-to-pay on a phone instead of a POS terminal, plus virtual dollar cards, locked savings, and a multi-location business dashboard.
The problem
A physical POS terminal is a real barrier for a small merchant in Lagos or Accra: upfront cost, procurement delay, a device to maintain. Meanwhile every one of those merchants already carries an NFC-capable Android phone. The hard part is that accepting a card on a general-purpose phone puts you squarely inside PCI's software-based PIN entry requirements.
What we did
Built the SoftPOS layer to read contactless cards over the phone's own NFC radio. No dongle, no terminal, no procurement cycle.
Stood up a dedicated attestation and security service that checks device integrity before a transaction is permitted, so a rooted or tampered handset is refused rather than trusted.
Split the platform into independently deployable services for payments, authentication, security attestation and support, so a change to savings never risks the card path.
Added dollar-denominated products (virtual cards, locked savings) on the same ledger, giving merchants an inflation hedge alongside their float.
Designed the multi-location dashboard around the real question owners ask: which outlet took what, right now.
Outcome
Live on iOS and Android across Nigeria and Ghana, serving retail, food and beverage, healthcare, beauty and professional services merchants, with 1,000+ reviews averaging 4.8 stars.
What we delivered
- SoftPOS / tap-to-pay
- Device attestation service
- Payments API
- Virtual dollar cards
- Savings products
- Merchant dashboard
- Mobile apps
Stack
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